Domus Die Adamantus
by Wierdkid20
Summary: (Home of the Diamond) Change doesn't come easy, not to humans and certainly not to gems. It's been ten years since the end of Seditionis Adamas and Era 3 is proving to be absolutely unprecedented. Both Steven and Domina will be digging within the past to uncover things that may have been better to leave alone.
1. Chapter 1

Four thousand six hundred and forty-three years ago there had been a series of conversations between White Diamond and those she was leaving behind. Some were about the empire, some about the further things that needed stabilizing at the beginning of Era 2. But most of it was about Domina. Discussions about what the new diamond would need to learn, how the remaining potential colony planets should be given to her in order of increasing difficulty, charting the path of how the daughter of White Diamond should rise to the position of a truly great ruler.

Yellow Diamond rarely disagreed with White Diamond, but Yellow Pearl had never seen the two argue so vehemently about anything.

"You can't expect the empire to simply accept an organic as a diamond."

"The Empire is willing to accept a lot of things Yellow." White Diamond was more at ease than Yellow, and still regal upon her seat despite her great reduction in size and the sudden expansion of her abdomen.

"But not this, you can't honestly expect that the first time White Diamond appears in public in centuries will be as some organic hybrid. We don't even know how her physical form will appear!" And for once White Diamond had relented, and Domina was encouraged, one way or another, to remain in the shadows, much as her mother had once done.

At the time it had seemed sensible to Yellow Pearl because of course, the image of the diamonds mattered over everything else. Now though, she was pretty sure it was in the running for the stupidest decision her former diamond had ever made.

Domina _thrived_ in social situations, far more than her mother ever seemed too, and certainly more than Yellow Diamond.

And it provided Yellow Pearl some entertainment to watch Domina approach unsuspecting gems at the first Cosmic Jubilee of Era 3.

The Cosmic Jubilee was a gala, a time for all the elite of Homeworld to show off their accomplishments among themselves. It typically was not attended by the diamonds, but when White Diamond decides she wants to do something it was difficult to dissuade her.

'Especially,' Yellow Pearl thought 'When the person that's the best at doing that is 3 sectors away.' The other two diamonds were in attendance as well which meant that Yellow was the only pearl on the Homeworld Governing Council present. That being said, the Cosmic Jubilee wasn't as homogenous as Yellow Pearl had expected. There were large numbers of beryls and demantoids but their crowds were also interspersed with quartzes, silicates, rubies, and even a few other pearls.

"Are you the only one here?" Domina was suddenly next to Yellow Pearl jolting her out of her thoughts.

"With Feldspar gone? Of course." Yellow Pearl shook her head and then gestured with a nod in the direction of Blue Diamond, who was speaking with one of the Aquamarines. "Blue Diamonds presence means that Blue was reluctant to come and Jet knows a few of the elites here so decided she would..." Yellow Pearl frowned. "Actually now that I think about it, I can't remember what she said her excuse was." Domina chuckled.

"I'm sure it was good."

"I'm sure," Yellow Pearl mused, looking over Domina briefly, she seemed fine, no visible signs of strain or exhaustion. She was dressed differently, a shimmering cape over one shoulder with sandals instead of her customary boots.

"I was expecting Forest though, the final plans for the new dropships are just awesome."

"She was invited but said that she knew too many gems that were going to be here."

"Don't you know most of the gems here?" Domina asked with a puzzled frown. Yellow Pearl shrugged. She did, perhaps not by cut and facet but she was familiar with most of the gems here by reputation at the very least. But when you're used to being at the beck and call of one of the most powerful beings in the universe, it's hard to be intimidated by an upper crust who has barely even spoken with Yellow Diamond.

"I do, but Yellow Diamond asked me specifically to come." Yellow Pearl smirked, gesturing with a nod to the more and more harried matriarch that was listening to a ruby describe... something that involved an awful lot of moving around.

"So she could have a quick way out?" Domina grinned.

"Well, of course, I'm supposed to go interrupt her in an hour and then-"

"Your Brilliance!" An onyx elbowed her way into their conversation with such smoothness that Yellow Pearl nearly admired her, or would have if she hadn't been subtly shoved aside. "I'd hoped I might get a chance to speak with you!"

Yellow Pearl saw a brief flash of anger over Domina's face, something she'd seen often enough but recently, any anger shown by the Diamond had a... different quality to it. Soon enough Domina's face softened into an easy-going smile and an apologetic glance in Yellow Pearl's direction.

"Onyx 8ES Correct? I've been hearing good things about the colony you oversee, Yellow Pearl's been consulting with a few of the scientists on the coding of the new gems for the next seeding of 23-T72." Domina said. Yellow Pearl rolled her eyes seconds before the Onyx turned to give her a only partially disdainful look. 'Consulting' with those gems had been a futile exercise when they seemed intent of only telling her things she already knew, as slowly as possible.

"Ah yes, that... endeavor is still being worked on?" The onyx said, her initial enthusiasm about speaking with Domina was already waning.

"It is."

"The first gems emerge in a few months." Yellow Pearl piped up, she had moved to stand on Domina's other side.

"They do!" Domina was every picture the proud kindergartener, you would have thought that she grew the gems herself. "Just a test batch, of course, to ensure that we can even make gems in these conditions. Then we'll be implanting the new types."

Yellow Pearl's smile faded slightly, there was that deadline hanging over her. One she certainly didn't seem to be heading towards with any speed.

"Er... yes, I'm sure the whole project has been a wealth of knowledge," The onyx said awkwardly. "Though I heard tell that you've ordered all traditional methods of Gem creation to halt?"

"Temporarily, there's more than enough-" Domina continued with a wave of her hand. Yellow Pearl saw the bafflement on the Onyx's face, something she'd seen often enough when anyone mentioned the Organic Kindergartening project.

"And you really think that's wise?" Of course, not many gems had the luster to interrupt to argue with a Diamond. Yellow Pearl blinked and glanced at Domina who mostly looked shocked.

"I do." She said indignantly after a few moments, and Yellow Pearl could feel the air movement around them still slightly, this conversation was quickly becoming something she was going to have to mention to Pink. And then Domina was calm, her face polite as she nodded to the both of them. "Now if you two will excuse me, I'm expecting a call this evening, Onyx I'm sure if you have more questions Yellow Diamond will be more than eager to answer them, it is one of her planets after all." Domina winked conspiratorially at Yellow Pearl before quickly walking towards the door.

Yellow Pearl followed her with her eyes, and bit her lip thoughtfully, then spotted Yellow Diamond out of the corner of her eye. She probably wouldn't mind going home early. Yellow Pearl certainly knew she wanted to.

* * *

Domina had ailments that she was used to, aching joints, tense muscles, sore fingers. But she expected to leave all that behind now that she wasn't organic. Apparently, headaches were here to stay. Or maybe gemache was more applicable, she knew Steven got them too, the feeling that your gem was trying to either pop out on its own or further bury into you. To Domina now, it felt like being cracked, again.

The apartment was empty when she warped in because of course, it was. Domina pulled off her cape and laid it on the couch nearby, on top of her coat, then unlaced her sandals to kick them off next to her boots. The corporeal section of the Apartment was an utter wreck, not that she needed pearl to clean up with her, it was just so much easier not to care when Pearl wasn't there.

Speaking of pearl, her communicator began to ring moments after she removed her shoes. Domina smiled and tossed her screen to eye level.

"Well we're still in one piece," Pearl said from the other side of the video transmission. She was on the bridge of the ship her and Feldspar were traveling on. Domina saw Feldspar wave at her from the background and waved back.

"That's always good to hear," Domina said. "Was Holik-9 really that bad?" The outer planets that the pair had been checking in on all seemed to be in various states of not following the empires new laws for Era 3, some were still regulating the jobs gems could do, others were restricting communication unnecessarily, some things minor some not. And while Domina missed Pearl so, so, soooooo much, she had to admit that they were needed out there.

"They hadn't ceased pearl production, or gifting," Pearl said with a very tense smile. Domina was torn between shocked silence and unbridled rage. She settled for blinking and disbelief.

"Please tell me you're joking."

"I wish I was. But it's dealt with, I have the Catapelite with us for trial when we get back to Homeworld." Pink Pearl said gesturing up where the camera could just catch glimpses of several floating bubbles. Domina opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question. "And Feldspar has all the data for the court to look over." Domina closed her mouth.

"Well, great job, I'm sorry that didn't get dealt with sooner," Domina said. A message popped up on her screen and Domina saw the text for just long enough to bring a grimace to her face before she wiped it out of sight for later.

"Problem?" Pearl asked.

Domina shook her head and forced a smile to cover her lie. "Just a reminder about going to see Steven tomorrow."

"Oh, well, good luck then, have you slept recently?" She asked. Domina waved her off.

"I'll sleep tomorrow, Steven was talking about a movie night with Connie and Amethyst."

"Well, that good but-" Pearl began only to be cut off by the sound of her receiving another call. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"No! Take it! I'll talk to you soon, miss you." Domina said quickly, ignoring the small catch in her throat.

"Miss you too Domina," Pearl said with a smile before she disconnected the call.

When she did the message Domina had dismissed reasserted itself on screen.

Clear Beryl Facet 7W2F Cut 1GZ

There was nothing else, just the name of a gem. But Domina didn't really need any other context. A Gem shattered for theft of material in the third fleet section, it turns out they were trying to repair themselves after an accident. It was almost a mercy killing, there had never been a way, until Steven, to repair cracked gems.

Mossy and Pearl had told her over and over that it had been for the best, that it wasn't her fault that this gem had to be shattered, but those words didn't feel anymore true now than they did then.

Domina shook her head and deleted the message, this was the twelfth one of those she had gotten in the past decade. All anonymously, all with just the name of a gem she had shattered.

Mysterious and disturbing?

Yes.

Something she was going to let herself dwell on?

Not if she had the choice.

Domina pulled on her jacket and her boots, She still had ten hours to kill before she went to Earth for two days. And there was always still work to do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey everyone! glad you enjoyed the first chapter, here's the next, gotta say I was having a lot of fun planning this one of many plotlines (hopefully I'm not overdoing it but we'll see.) Also I learned that writing blue diamond is hard when you have written very little from her pov. anyway, I hope you like this chapter! see you all monday.**

_Tigers Eye Facet 4H5K Cut 7YN_

She had stumbled upon a meeting between Blue Pearl and Jet and nervously scrambled for her communicator when she saw two pearls brandishing weapons. Blue Pearl had smashed her gem and swept the shards into a crevice in a panic. That had been early in the rebellion, early enough that Blue Pearl hadn't even remembered the gem until the message appeared anonymously in her inbox.

* * *

_Ammolite Facet 7Y1O Cut 4OH_

A musician who was found to have written about the final attack on Earth in an unfavorable light. Blue Diamond didn't often take it upon herself to shatter traitors but she had been so full of grief after Pink's shattering that she crushed the opalescent shards below her feet.

* * *

_Emerald Facet 1W2T Cut 0HC _

The commander of the 8th sector within the Blue District. Jet had blown through there in a transport with enough explosives to level every building there. Thankfully for the 8th sector, there was only one spire she wanted destroyed. But the emerald had tried to stop her, and Jet had not gone through all this to be stopped.

* * *

_Chrome-Diopside Facet 3D1G Cut 4XK_

Yellow Diamond blinked blankly at the name on her screen, she had no idea who this was. Given the pattern of the last ten, it was probably someone she had shattered, but... She shook her head and deleted the message. If someone was trying to intimidate her they would have to do a better job than that.

* * *

Jet interrupted Blue Pearl's thoughts on Tiger's Eye as she stormed through the door into the Homeworld Governing Council's workroom.

"And another one! Sent anonymously to each of the diamonds, run through six relays all originating from an abandoned personal transport ship in orbit around an asteroid in the beta quadrant." Jet furiously tossed the holofische towards the center of the table where they caught mid-air and righted themselves to project the messages the diamonds had received.

Blue Pearl calmly closed her screen.

"Jet, I don't believe the intention was for you to monitor all three diamonds' communications." She said, though she knew it was useless to complain.

"Pink's busy and I might as well just add Yellow Diamond's communications to my radar. After all, you're the one that says I need to get a hobby." Jet mused, sliding into a chair.

"This isn't what I meant, but if you're happy..." Blue Pearl thought she caught a glimpse of a smile on Jet's face before the pearl once again turned serious. Blue worried about Jet, probably more than she ought to, considering the gem was capable of surviving on a hostile planet in the middle of the rebellion for nearly a year. But still, Jet isolated herself more than usual and didn't always seem present during their meetings.

"The suspect would have to have access to all the relays used, as well as the shuttle to plant the message in the first place, and presumably has access to the shattering records." Jet paused, and then sighed and gently rubbed the setting of her gem. "And of course, that list was a lot shorter until _someone_ opened up public records of the last era and a half's worth of shatterings."

"Domina meant well" Blue said gently.

"She always _means_ well," Jet grumbled, she collapsed the various screens, sleuthing over. "I don't think it can legitimately be accepted as an excuse anymore." Blue hesitated before deciding to ignore it. Jet didn't like Domina, and that was something that, despite their best efforts, wasn't going to change.

"So why?" Blue Pearl asked, finally asking the question that had been weighing on her mind since these messages had first started arriving. "What do they want? What's their motive?"

Jet shrugged.

"Attention? Power? Maybe just to keep the diamonds on edge?" Jet was dismissive but there was an underpinning uncertainty. "Not that I can blame them, they deserve it." Blue Pearl looked back at her screen, empty except for the background of her, White, Yellow, and Pink. The message was still minimized and she could just barely make out the words in it. She deleted the message and forced a smile.

"You're not wrong about that."

* * *

Major changes in power did have a way of sparking creativity within the blue court. Blue Diamond enjoyed the Cosmic Jubilee, which was to be expected. She remembered when balls and events extended weeks on Homeworld. Yellow had left early which was also to be expected. But the fact that Domina had even shown up was... interesting. White was never one for parties and Blue really didn't expect to see Domina, who generally seemed more comfortable on a dusty far off planet than anywhere on Homeworld.

The hybrid was charismatic, Blue Diamond had to give her that.

When she entered her quarters on Homeworld, she deleted the note with the reminder about Ammolite 4OH. Of course, like everything, it brought up memories of Pink, there was one of 4OH's songs that the young diamond had been particularly fond of and so Blue put it on, and reclined in her chair, staring at the ceiling and trying to let Pink go.

It didn't work, it never did, but it was nice to close her eyes and let the notes wash over her and dredge up memories of Pink's delight the first time she heard the tune.

All of that was broken by a chime from the door. Blue Diamond pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment then checked the door cam. It was Domina. Which the fact that she knocked was a good sign. If Domina didn't knock it meant that she was beyond anger which Blue had to admit was just as terrifying as White Diamond's, despite the vast reduction in apparent power. Blue hesitated to let her in, she would rather not deal with the present for the evening. As if sensing her hesitance, Domina stared straight at her through the camera, arched an eyebrow and gave her a two-fingered wave.

Blue Diamond opened the door.

"Blue Diamond, good evening." Domina strolled into the main room, her movements as stiff as her greeting. Blue Diamond couldn't tell if she was trying to imitate her mother or simply keeping herself closed off. Despite Blue Diamond's misgivings about Domina and the role she was trying to push herself into, she did regret betraying her trust.

"Domina," Blue Diamond nodded to her and raised a platform somewhere closer to eye level. Domina rarely flew in her presence anymore and Blue was not going down to her level. "I thought you were leaving for P- for Earth."

"I am, in six hours," Domina said pulling up her screen and opening a series of notes. Blue resisted the urge to roll her eyes. White had made a mistake entrusting a being with a moldable personality to Yellow Diamond. "Is the Holik system one of yours or Yellow's"

Blue Diamond felt the center of her gem go cold. "Mine," She said hesitantly and rapidly opening her own screen searching for reports, or status updates. "Why do you ask?"

"Well haven't you seen the..." Domina began, looking at her confused before staring back at her open screen. "Oh, it hasn't been posted yet. Here," Half a second later there was a Mission Resource Status update posted for that attempt at reigning in the outer colonies that Domina's pearl was on. A report file on Holik-9 that she skimmed in the course of a few minutes. That didn't bring her any more comfort

"I... I had nothing to do with this," Blue Diamond said quickly, though Domina's tone didn't seem to be blaming her for anything. "I assure you." She didn't agree with a large number of the changes made to the empire's legal system but for a colony to flagrantly disobey one of the core principles that her fellow Diamonds were trying to enforce was inexcusable. Something White would have corrupted a colony over.

"I believe you," Domina waved her off. "If you had, I'm sure Jet would not have hesitated to inform us." She certainly would have not. That piece of nacre was as good at her job as she was infuriating. Blue would love to have a batch of sodalites with half that pearl's drive. "I just wanted to know if you would take it to the legal committee so that it can be flagged to be processed as a landmark case.

Blue Diamond raised an eyebrow. "You think that's wise?"

"I think it's a decent place to start, to give us precedent later," Domina said. Blue Diamond nodded, making herself a reminder. That was apparently all Domina had to say considering the awkward silence they fell into after that. Blue Diamond bit her lip a moment before probing.

"How did... the memory realignment with Sapphire 7NZ go? You were able to locate her?"

"I was, thank you, and sorry again that finding her took so long," Domina said, she didn't meet Blue Diamond's eyes. "My mother was apparently very thorough about covering her tracks." Blue Diamond thought about some treaties and trade deals she had discovered. White Diamond had broken them off so completely that there were few records of them even existing in the first place.

"She was, within and without." Blue Diamond said. Domina nodded and pulled up another screen, this one showing a ship manifest.

"The next one will be in a few months, one of mine thankfully, one that I know, on a scouting ship," Domina said with a small smile creeping onto her face.

"I thought you recalled all the scout ships?"

"Just ones looking for new planets to colonize, general exploration is fine," Domina said, closing her screen and lowering the platform. "They found a toroidal planet on the scanner, should be interesting."

For certain definitions of interesting, Blue Diamond mused. Though... something about a toroidal planet stuck with her like it was something that was important and she should remember.

"Thank you, Blue Diamond," Domina said as she stepped onto the floor.

"Of course, enjoy your time on Earth" Blue Diamond replied, reclining once again in her chair as Domina exited with a final statement.

"I always do."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, sorry I'm late this week, It's been a rough week and I'm trying to get my act back together. This chapter was... hard, so I hope that there are some good parts here that you enjoy.**

**thanks to Squish for betaing, and I will see you guys next week**

_High middle low_

Stevima was far stronger than they had been ten years ago. Before, they had been exhausted healing only three gems. Now they were easily healing a dozen without the excruciating headache they had gotten before.

_High middle low_

Granted, there were still many many corrupted gems to go but Stevima had finally hit their stride.

_High middle low_

It was almost boring.

Stevima opened their eyes and smiled lazily at the gems that were shakily getting to their feet. They stepped aside and watched as the Crystal Gems ran to embrace them. There were a few Homeworld aligned gems but the nephrites had been doing a great job of explaining the situation to them. Even though "Air without a Care" wanted to be right in the middle of it.

"Well, that's all my part done." Stevima grinned at Connie and Amethyst who were standing nearby. Connie was home from Empire City this weekend, and Stevima knew that 'Lover Quartz' wanted to do nothing more than to spend the weekend with arms around his girlfriend. But he was willing to hold back for a bit so Stevima could have their fun, he was considerate like that.

"You stickin' around?" Amethyst asked.

"Yeah, for now," Stevima said lazily. "Anyone have any plans?"

Steven had told Domina once that his mom had said that Earth was a place where anything could happen. Domina was a firm believer that Earth was a remarkable planet but it still was just a planet.

This put Stevima square in the middle, even though that wasn't technically how fusion worked.

Earth was just a planet, one that was remarkable because that's all it had to be. Which really was the ideal from Stevima's perspective. They were proud of being free from the anxieties and expectations that both of their components held and just allowed to be themselves. And Stevima enjoyed it, even with how short-lived their moments usually were.

So they pushed aside the thoughts of proposals, shards, threatening notes, and an empire full of problems, and they went to the beach with Connie and Amethyst, then to the prime kindergarten to talk with Peridot and debate with Lapis about who controlled the clouds. And then finally they let go, with their final thought wondering just how much they were like Earth, what were they capable of?

"I mean it sounds like someone's trying to scare you," Steven said. Domina sighed.

"I assume so. But why?" She hadn't told anyone about the notes, not even Pearl, but she had told Steven and Connie. And it helped to take some of the weight of that off her shoulders.

"Maybe they're trying to use it as blackmail?" Connie asked, they were in the living room, all sprawled on the couch where they had been deciding on what movies to watch that night. Until Domina had brought up the message with Beryl 1GZ's name on it.

"If they are, they haven't made any demands," Domina said. "And it's not like that information isn't public."

"Maybe they're just playing a joke on you?" Steven proposed. Domina chuckled.

"Well if that's the case, I can't wait for the punchline."

During these weekends Domina felt normal. Especially with Pearl gone she needed a place to feel safe and like she was surrounded by family, especially since...

"Oh! How's the fleet? You said you were going to see them last week." Connie asked. "Did Mossy decide on which world you guys were going to start terraforming next?" Domina frowned.

"No, Moss Agate and I didn't come to an agreement." Though that was a _huge_ understatement. Steven and Connie looked at each other uncertainly and Domina shook her head, shoving down thoughts about that argument.

"Weren't we going to watch Dogcopter?" She suggested, nudging the box set out of Steven's hand with a gust of wind.

"Right!" Steven said, diving to catch the DVDs. "You make popcorn. Connie, can you get the blankets out of the bedroom? If we're going to be watching movies for eight hours we better get comfortable!"

They slept late that night, and Domina fought sleep to the last possible moment. Not ready for whatever dreams she found herself in.

In her dream, Domina didn't recognize the floor tiles and yet still her mind thought they were all too familiar. She walked alongside... someone, following them, trailing behind with soft footsteps and hands firmly clasped behind her back. The floor tiles were... odd, not as pristinely geometric as the floors in most gem buildings. They were shaped organically as if someone had tried to make a masterpiece of the floors. Domina knew enough to know that she was on a planet, she could feel the pull of true gravity on her form. She wanted to raise her head, to look around and inspect her surroundings but something told her that she had to remain respectful, invisible, to blend in as a diamond should. She stopped as the person in front of her stopped, and there was... conversation? A language of hissing that was once again so unusual but still familiar to a section of her mind.

"-no inconsistencies other than the overcharged capacity?"

"Yes, yes, and it's performing much better than the trials with graphite."

"But surely it's still brittle?"

"Inspect for yourself." A scaled hand grabbed her chin and pulled her head up. The lights were bright and she couldn't see the face but there was a fingernail tapping her gem. She wanted to snarl, yell, jerk away, hit back but something kept her rigid, whether it was programming or fear.

"Hmm, fascinating." The hand moved, prodding the hair of her form, "All that power and still capable of holding a form this delicate." The hand moved and continued to run through the hair, touching underneath to hold the back of her head. She felt scrutinized and she certainly didn't like that. She jerked her head back and the hands went away. There was a chuckle and the one she had been following cuffed the back of her head disapprovingly.

"Of course that still doesn't keep us from glitches causing insubordination. Perhaps the next model will prove to be more stable." They began to move again, and she followed eyes on the floor, as the two beings spoke as if she wasn't there. Finally, she managed to look up, to look through a window and see a world of red dirt and low green trees. And Domina saw her reflection, face white, and narrow, her hair, pale and iridescent pulled into an intricate pattern tight against her hair, framing her face. And she stared into her eyes, pale, white with diamonds at their centers.

Domina woke up with a shout. Thankfully Steven and Connie slept heavily and didn't react with anything more than a grumble as they curled closer together, while Domina caught her breath, the ghost of her heart thrumming in her chest. That wasn't the first dream like that she'd had. Domina's dreams had been full of moments like that, scenes from... a past that wasn't hers. Ever since she had reformed, ever since she had spoken with her mother, she felt like she wasn't entirely herself.

And those thoughts were hard to ignore when she was sitting in the dark, essentially alone. So Domina got up and stepped on the warp pad to go up to the temple's hand. It was a cloudless night and the moon was already starting to set, it would be daylight in a few hours. Domina stepped off the warp pad and sat next to the washer, White Pearl must have started it recently because it was humming. Making a mechanical noise that was more soothing to her than the crash of waves and the sound of crickets chirping. The warp pad chimed and White Pearl stepped off, carrying a basket.

"Domina?" She asked with a puzzled frown.

"Hello, sorry, couldn't sleep." Domina lied, "Or slept enough, I can't tell."

"Ah." White Pearl said awkwardly. Domina stood up and awkwardly smiled at the gem. Their relationship was still as odd as it always had been. They sparred with each other still, and Domina knew that White was among the legion of people Pearl had drafted to keep an eye on her. But they didn't talk much.

"Did Steven propose to Connie yet?" Domina asked in an attempt at small talk.

White Pearl smiled softly. "No, he says he's waiting for the right time but he's been saying that for the past few months, I think he's worried she'll say no." Domina snorted.

"I think he's worrying over nothing."

"Most likely, he and Connie are so close and..." Pearl trailed off. Domina hesitated.

"Would Rose Quartz have liked her?" She asked. Pearl smiled.

"Of course, Rose loved everybody." Rose Quartz was still a touchy subject around the beach house but after all this time the Gems really did seem to be healing.

"Even Pink Diamond?" Domina asked with a slight smile. Pearl rolled her eyes.

"That's a complicated story."

"I've heard it several times and it doesn't get any less complicated."

"I've lived it and can assure you it does not." White Pearl asked. Domina nodded and looked up at the sky.

"Do... do you ever worry that Rose might be somewhere in Steven?" Domina asked. "Just sleeping?" Pearl froze and stared at Domina. She had heard about what had happened after she had shattered, and when Steven healed her gem. She knew that her mother had almost reformed. And she knew that Steven worried about the same question. That maybe he wasn't alone in his gem, and Domina had done nothing to help him put those worries to rest.

"I used to," Pearl said.

"And you don't anymore?"

"I knew Rose Quartz for over six thousand years, and as much of her as I see in Steven it's just... just echos." Pearl's eyes watered slightly before she wiped them away and her voice went firm. "She's gone." Domina let those words hang in the air for a bit. And tried to make herself believe them as well. She had to, it couldn't be more than echos left in her gem. She let her hand ghost over the facets unthinkingly and then felt a hand on her shoulder. "Domina, White Diamond is gone, I knew her for longer." White Pearl said, in a tone of voice Domina usually only heard when she spoke to Steven. "And I can assure you, she's gone. You are yourself, no one else."


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey guys! So I'm back! really soon! And I had a lot of fun working on this chapter and I really hope you enjoy and... well time for stuff to start happening.**

**Thanks to squish for Betaing this chapter kind of late in the evening.**

**and I'll see you guys friday, that's right, friday, we're back on the crazy update train guys, choo choo**

Yellow Diamond would be lying if she said that the transition from single-handedly running the empire to only being responsible for a small part of it was easy. She often found herself bored with less to do, but the relief of being able to truly focus on Homeworld's technological development and infrastructure made up for it. All major damage on the city-wide planet that had been sustained during Blue's brief rebellion had been repaired or rebuilt; but there was still structural wear and damage from tremors near the city's lower levels. Isolating those and attempting to determine the cause consumed most of her attention.

The rest of her focus was mostly concentrated on the 'point' of Era 3. The project on 23-T72 was radical. Not simply in terms of the goal to re-terraform the world, but also so many key components of the kindergartening process needed reworked. It was almost maddening trying to keep on top of problems that emerged; pollination, nutrient loss through the flooding that had happened when the atmospheric dampeners had initially been turned off, a visit from Steven that had inadvertently ended in injectors being tangled in semi sapient vines.

Which is why any calls coming from Heliodor 4KV, colony planet overseer, were routed to immediately appear on screen.

"Your Radiance," Heliodor interjected, her voice was panicked enough to push Yellow Diamond out of her knee-jerk disapproval of the use of her title. "There's been an incident."

Ten minutes after the call ended Yellow Diamond burst into the meeting room the pearls had commandeered.

"We have a problem." She said. Blue Pearl's mouth snapped shut and she turned from the peridot she was talking to, to blink at Yellow Diamond in surprise.

"Do you not know how to knock?" Jet asked from the opposite side of the door. Yellow Diamond rolled her eyes.

"What's going on?" Forest asked from her perch on the opposite end of the table.

"There was an incident at 23-T72. Is Yellow here? It's going to affect her timeline." Yellow Diamond glanced around the room but didn't see signs of her- of Yellow Pearl.

"She's off planet, talking with the Serpentine." Blue Pearl spoke up, the worry actually visible on her face. Yellow Diamond frowned, she should have known. She was the one who suggested that Yellow Pearl talk to Serpentine 8PL in the first place. She was in charge of combing through the remainder of White's files in case anything _else_ universe shattering was lurking in them.

"Right, of course, I'll go by myself."

"I'm coming with you." Jet said, pushing herself away from the wall.

"That's really not necessary."

"It should just be more than you. Have you contacted Moss Agate?" Jet walked past her, already manipulating her screens. Yellow sighed and followed her, catching up to her with a few strides.

"I have not, I was planning on doing that after I told Domina," Yellow said, opening a communication channel to her fellow diamond. Jet didn't respond as they walked side by side to Yellow Diamond's ship.

"You know Yellow, I've got at least 3 hours before I have a meeting that requires me to be back on Homeworld." Domina said by way of a greeting. She had a lazy smile on her face that Yellow Diamond almost hesitated to break. Yellow could see lava in the background and hear Bismuth's voice in the background saying, 'Tell the upper-crust that you're off the clock! This thing is almost done.'

"I need you to meet myself and Jet at the test planet." Yellow Diamond said, ignoring Bismuth. "It's urgent."

"Why?" A twinge of concern caused Domina's smile to fade

"Someone fracked the kindergarten."

* * *

Theoretically Jet knew what fracking was. It was usually done on small asteroids, as a quick and easy way of breaking them apart to harvest their materials. You simply drilled a hole and had a Lapis Lazuli pressurize it until everything broke apart. That's how it was always described in books and reports.

It was very different from seeing it first hand, done on a kindergarten.

The damage was visible from the time they began the entrance into the planet's atmosphere. The canyon where the test kindergarten was situated was completely collapsed on one side. Mud and silt intermixed with twisted metal and crystal machinery. Every once in a while as they stepped through the wreckage on landing they came across a rough geode, split roughly in half with its unpolished interior sputtering faint light, not powerful enough to form anything but an unsettling feeling. Moss Agate had warped there directly and so met them at the far side of the canyon. The taciturn agate was disheveled from the trans-galactic warp but she hadn't even taken the time to straighten her cape.

"Where's Heliodor?" Yellow Diamond asked as they approached.

"Down in amongst the slag." Moss Agate said gesturing with one hand at a small pale yellow form in the thick of the frenzy of the gems at the base, trying to somehow clean up this mess and recover what they could. "I told her I'd notify her when White Diamond had joined us."

Jet recovered from the surprise first while Yellow Diamond continued to blink at the very idea of Domina being referred to as White Diamond by Moss Agate of all gems. "Did you review the security footage?" Jet asked

"I did," Moss Agate stated, not meeting either of their eyes. "No signs of any-" She was cut off by a warp pad and a very stiff breeze suddenly picking up.

"Are you telling me that in the hundreds of hours of planning that we looked through from those so-called 'shining stars of the fleet'-" Domina began stalking off the warp pad, her jacket was tied around her waist and whipped around her like a cape. Jet didn't like Domina generally but she felt like she had a good idea of the kind of reaction the gem would have to most disaster situations. This was... uncharacteristic. Uncharacteristic enough that she swore she heard Yellow Diamond mutter "What in stars name-" under her breath.

"-that we overlooked that none of those clods thought to include security!" Jet took a step back from Domina, usually, she made it a point not to be intimidated by any of the diamonds' nonsense but this was different. Yellow Diamond took a longer step, the expression on her face had gotten only more bewildered with a hint of recognition. Only Moss Agate stood her ground.

"Don't be ridiculous, They followed all the standard procedures."

"Oh really?" Domina asked, disdain thick on her voice. "Then, Moss Agate, care to explain why 1500 potential injection sites are gone?"

"Things like this happen, _My Diamond._"

Jet felt a hand on her shoulder as she was pulled slightly back by Yellow Diamond. She followed as the wind began to increase.

"Well, it should not have happened here! Those polishers should have known that something like this would be a target with all the problems we've had in this area."

"Oh really? Then why didn't you in your _Brilliance_ think to request additional forces? Since you're obviously part sapphire too!"

"Don't talk to me like that, Quartz!" Domina snapped, the wind rose again, dirt clumps now starting to come loose now that the plants that had previously held it down were gone. "They should have known, We wouldn't have had to tell any of the old planning team what to expect! Where the frack is Heliodor?!"

Jet swore she felt ozone in the air as Domina rose in the air to leave, and Yellow Diamond's hand twitched seconds before Moss Agate's gem glowed and a whip emerged, catching Domina's feet and yanking her to the ground, throwing her off balance.

"How many times do we have to have this star's cursed conversation?" Moss Agate snapped, the whip disappearing. "You cannot act like this! It doesn't matter how they would have done, they're gone, Domina! What would your father say?"

And for a moment Jet wondered if she was about to see Moss Agate dissipate, she had heard about what Domina was actually like in combat when she wasn't cracked. And this situation had long since passed the point of 'civil argument' But the winds stopped, and Domina looked like someone had stabbed her through the gut, she glanced their way and Jet saw her scanning their faces. The diamond's eyes were wet and her face had gone red. There were a tense few seconds and then Domina stepped back on to the warp pad and disappeared into the stream.

Finally, as she felt Yellow Diamond relax behind her, Jet found the words to speak.

"What the shale was that?"

* * *

Usually after Domina went back to Homeworld, Steven didn't hear from her for a while. She usually said she was 'playing mustard' which made him wonder if she really didn't understand the phrase or just really wasn't a fan of ketchup. But less than 6 hours after she left, Domina called him on his phone which, between Bismuth, Peridot, and Pearl, could probably call halfway across the universe.

Steven was in the middle of packing the hotdog duffle bag for a picnic with Connie that evening, and had just slipped the ring box into the mustard compartment when Domina appeared on screen, or rather the inside of the Styx appeared. The camera was angled up from a toolbox at one of the myriads of panels and a few seconds later Domina stepped into view. She didn't look at him.

"Uh... hey, Domina." Steven asked hesitantly. "Something wrong with the Styx?"

"Oh the inertial dampener is acting up again," Domina said. She had rolled up her sleeves and was looking more upset than mechanical problems usually made her.

"Oh uh... Is that the part Peridot and Sabina tried replicating a few months ago."

"Yes, I think there's a wire loose, I just have to take it out and-" She descended into some kind of gem technobabble that Pearl might have understood but Steven didn't, so he just stood there awkwardly and nodded at what he hoped were the right parts. Kind of like how he did when Connie talked to him about her thesis on middle-grade novels and their message regarding revolution and war.

Eventually, Domina actually looked at him and frowned.

"I'm no fashion expert but usually a helmet and a bowtie don't go together right?" She asked.

"Oh uh, yeah," Steven said nervously thumbing his suspenders. "Usually, but me and Connie have a date tonight and Sabina's letting us borrow her motorcycle."

"Oh!" Domina said, suddenly looking embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn't think about this being a bad time for you, I can call back-"

"No, no! It's ok, I'm just waiting. Is something wrong? Other than the Styx's reaction to uh... the transfer of potential to ...active energy?" Steven asked hesitantly. Domina chuckled half-heartedly and was silent for a moment.

"Do you ever worry... that it's not worth it to get attached to people?" She asked.

"What?"

"It's just... I mean your not a diamond but you're still going to live for a long time. Is it- is it even..." Domina's mouth snapped shut and she shook her head. "Sorry, it's been a rough day."

"Oh I'm sorry, is... did something happen to Pink Pearl or Yellow Diamond?" Steven asked, maybe someone had gotten hurt? Maybe Domina was just being dramatic about someone getting poofed?

"No, no," Domina said, dropping one of her tools "Someone...The kindergarten on the test planet, someone sabotaged it."

"Oh no!"

"Yes. It's a big setback and... It's just been a really bad day."

"Well, I'm sure you guys will figure it out, we can come help if you want, or did you talk to Mossy? Maybe she has an idea of who did it, she knows like everyone." Steven asked, and it was true, Mossy knew like every other gem they uncorrupted.

Domina chuckled but not like it was funny.

"Yes, I talked to Mossy," Domina muttered. "I don't know, maybe I just need to take a walk... or a trip." She said louder.

"That could be good!" Steven said encouragingly, "You could go home to the fleet." He saw Domina's smile falter.

"I.. don't think I can go home but... maybe somewhere." She said with a shrug. "Anyway have fun on your date, tell Connie hello for me," Domina said.

"Yeah, I will! If you need to talk-" Steven started but Domina hung up on him. He sighed and looked at the lump in the mustard pouch, one particular thing Domina had said running through his head. Steven bit his lip, then took out the ring box and put it back in his nightstand.


	5. Chapter 5

**I tell you, getting back into the swing of twice a week updates has a little bit of a learning curve, anyway I'm glad you guys enjoyed last weeks chapter I hope this one is just as good. Thank you Squish for betaing! See you guys Monday**

Pink Pearl had been with Domina since her birth. Other than a few exceptions they had never been apart for more than a day or so. But now they had been apart for a little over a year which proved that contrary to Jet's statement at the beginning of all of this, they were capable of being un-fused at the hip.

That being said, Pink Pearl felt like she was missing an arm. She kept waiting for Domina to make a joke about whatever situation they were in. And the ship was entirely too quiet without her murmuring as she worked and without a faint breeze in the air.

And she was worried. Something was wrong with Domina, she knew the woman as well as she knew anyone and she could tell that there was something deeper than the grief that should have been expected. And that's why she had asked so many people to keep an eye on the diamond. Even though Yellow Pearl had said she was just being paranoid.

Which was why it was very worrying to simultaneously get messages from both Jet and Yellow Diamond with the subject line reading: 'Domina'.

"That's never a good expression to see on your face," Feldspar said. The oversized pilot was sitting cross-legged on the floor nearby, sorting through the data to send to the defense zircon for the upcoming trial. Pink Pearl had her own opinion about providing a defense to the piece of slag from Holik-9 floating above them in a bubble, but she kept them to herself. Blue was still insistent about them doing things the proper way, even if they were both 80% sure that if the Catapelite wasn't embedded in something by the end of this, Jet would make sure that her shards ended up scattered across the planet.

Pink Pearl opened Yellow Diamond's message first. It was brief because of course it was. The Diamond simply stated that 'at an emergency meeting at the test site Domina was acting particularly out of character' and that she didn't comment on it afterward when Yellow Diamond reached out to her to speak about the incident.

Jet's was a little more in-depth.

_-so your diamond shows up and __**snapped**_ _at Moss Agate, I thought they got along. Isn't she like Domina's other caretaker or something? It was like looking at Blue Diamond in one of her worst tempers. Stars, for a moment I thought Yellow Diamond was going to dissipate her and then I'd have to have _that _conversation with you. And the weirdest fracking thing (pun not intended) is that after all that, after she just dramatically warps away, Moss acts like nothing happened._

Pink pursed her lips and stood up.

"What's wrong?" Feldspar asked, the gem's teasing grin gone and replaced by a look of worry.

"Nothing, nothing. I just... need to talk to someone."

* * *

Yellow Pearl had initially ignored her message from Yellow Diamond. She was gem deep in White Diamond's notes, scouring them for anything that might indicate what conversion enzyme needed to be added to the injection formula. Or what ratios the silicon base needed to have to carbon and star's knows what other materials.

Data was sparse and there had been attempts to reverse engineer the process from existing gems, especially after White Diamond had gone into her self imposed exile. Nothing had ever come of it though and it wasn't seen as a problem. After all, White Diamond was able to make the necessary adjustments for the gems of Era 2.

Eventually though, Yellow Pearl had to take a break and found a message, not just from her- from Yellow Diamond, but also from Blue. Both said essentially the same thing.

_We need to move up your timeline._

* * *

"6 months!?" Pink Pearl snapped in disbelief. "You two have been arguing for 6 months and this is the first I've heard of it?" Mossy hadn't been happy to be interrupted but it was the nature of their relationship that Pink couldn't bring herself to care.

"It's not as if we tell you everything," Mossy folded her arms and covered her gem protectively. "There are some things that simply aren't any of your business." Pink rolled her eyes.

"I would say that if you and Domina are arguing to the point of worrying that two separate people messaged me about it then yes, it is my business." Moss Agate huffed and looked away from the screen.

"If my diamond really thought that the gems put in charge of designing the test kindergarten did not have the interests of the empire in mind then she needs to address it directly."

"What?" Pink was taken aback. "Why would she think that? Did something happe-"

"Of course nothing happened!" Mossy snapped as if she was offended by the very idea. "Domina has never been one for paranoia! No, she found out that all the gems on the planning committee were from Blue Diamond's court."

"...How did that happen?" Pink asked.

"We had to take whoever was left," Mossy said firmly, she looked as stubborn as always but Pink could tell that Moss Agate was tired, as tired as she had been after Vitus had died. "And at the time, the only ones that were qualified were from her court, I don't like it any more than you but, star's Pink, what were we supposed to do? Domina knew we needed to fill positions for nearly 70 percent of the fleet."

"I'm sure she did." Pink sighed. "You know how she gets though."

"Yes, and usually her sentimentality is appreciated." Mossy murmured, rubbing her temples. "It always has been. But she cannot let it make her snub or dismiss entire members of her court who have honestly done nothing wrong. It's not fair to them and to be honest I expect better from her."

* * *

"Hand me that," Forest said. Jet frowned and looked at the selection of tools next to her.

"Hand you what?"

"The molecular bond dampener, far right, with the pink handle." Forest didn't even pull her head out of the generator, she just pointed in her general direction. Jet handed it to her with a sigh.

"Are you even listening?"

"Yes, yes, sorry but someone has to fix this, the last tremor damaged its feeder conduit and now if it doesn't get fixed we're going to have a problem," Forest said, her voice already winding up for a rant. Jet frowned

"Yes I understand that but why are _you_ fixing it?" Jet asked. Forest yanked her head out of the generator and glared at her with the opposite eye.

"Keep talking, sabotage, letters, whatever."

"You can't doubt that there's a possible link!"

"Oh I don't," Forest returned the focus of her attention to the generator. "I just doubt that Blue Diamond's involved."

"Well..." Jet sighed. Blue Diamond being her primary suspect of being behind the destruction of the test kindergarten was theoretically valid, even though it would be rather difficult for the diamond to coordinate any gems to carry out the action with the number of eyes on her. But if Jet pursued the idea of Blue Diamond being behind the kindergarten attack and those stars cursed messages... that's when it all fell apart. "What do you think?"

"I think you need more information," Forest said. "And maybe some help that isn't just venting to me, have you talked to Blue about this? Or Domina?"

"Blue's busy." Jet said immediately. "And I'm not getting Domina involved."

* * *

Domina was on the Styx when Pink Pearl called her. She was in the middle of reconnecting wires but managed to answer her communicator by bumping it with her elbow.

"Hello." She said without more than a brief smile in Pearl's direction. "Sorry, I'm in the middle of something. What's going on?"

"I talked to Mossy," Pearl said and instantly Domina felt her face go hot. Which was ridiculous, she didn't even have blood to blush with.

"Oh did you?" Domina asked.

"Yes, Her and Zee both actually." Pearl continued casually. Domina relaxed. She was still kicking herself for how she had reacted at the test kindergarten, but if Pearl had talked to Zee then it wasn't about that.

"Really? How is Zee?"

"She's fine, NY sent you a file on some upgrades she wants to do for Earth's warp network if it's ok with 5XG" Pearl said. Domina finished connecting the wire and closed the inertial dampeners casing. "And she mentioned you haven't been out to the fleet recently." Domina froze.

"Oh. That's true." Domina said. The last time she had been was actually a year ago, shortly before Pearl had left. And after _that_ argument with Mossy- Moss Agate, the one that had lead to her having to get a new communicator, Domina wasn't in a rush to go back. "I've been busy."

Pink looked skeptical. "That's never stopped you before."

"It hasn't." Domina wavered slightly. "It just..." She sighed and rubbed her gem. "It doesn't... It's not home anymore." She said finally. Pink blinked several times, which really reflected how Domina felt about the matter. The fleet had always been home to her, the one place where she felt like she belonged, more than even Earth. But now it was full of unfamiliar people. Unfamiliar people, and shadows of gems that had been lost in Blue's rebellion. Every time she went there, all that she could focus on was everyone that wasn't there. All the beryls that had been stuffy and formal but still introduced her to Homeworld music and taught her gem history, the nephrites that let her fly the scout ships a little higher than was strictly regulation, the rubies that would play tag with her, even if they got a little confused on the rules. They were all gone. And Domina couldn't help but feel like it was her fault.

"Domina!" Pearl repeated for what had to be the 5th time by her tone of voice.

"Yes? Sorry, my mind was somewhere else." Domina apologized.

"I just was wondering if everything was alright. Have you slept this week?"

"Yes, Pearl, I can take care of myself." Domina didn't mention the nightmares or the gemaches, that was nothing for her to worry about.

"Hm, well I'll believe it when I see proof," Pearl said, only half teasing.

"I can!" Domina insisted, then smiled. "Besides, you'll be back in a month, I'll survive until then."


	6. Chapter 6

Alright** guys. I know I tend to throw curve balls at you a lot (though this isn't that big of one all things considered) and I know that you've liked them in the past so... trust me on this.**

**thanks to **squish** for putting up with my waffling on the planning for this chapter.**

**enjoy**

It was quiet here, far from the inner city and on the outskirts of the areas where into the night the sandstones carved away at the quarries that had been assigned to them.

"Diamond," The olivine addressed Domina. _Silicate_ a corner of her sleeping mind prompted. "What time do you need to return."

"Not for several hours. What's the word from Amber?" Domina's words spilled out of her without prompting. She didn't even know which amber. She peered around the half-collapsed warehouse and saw signs of other gems, a large grey gem -_Iron-_ manipulated tiny parts to a small machine, she was about quartz sized. And there was another similarly size pale gem with multicolored bands crossing her body -_Sandstone_\- who was standing guard. Silicate was inspecting what looked like some kind of half cobbled together ship. And on the far side of the room, sitting amongst piles of paper plans was... a Goshenite? -_Beryl-_

"Amber says our best window is a month from now."

"Will the ship be ready then?"

"Ideally," Iron said, "If Silicate can get away for more than an hour at a time."

"Which would be a lot easier if my master would stop testing her new sequencer on the main power grid." Silicate smiled chagrined.

"What?" Domina asked, but her voice didn't respond. Apparently, it wasn't part of the script.

"Sorry about that, he's getting impatient, the disease is spreading." Diamond's voice, her mother's voice, said.

"We've got company." Sandstone turned towards them, revealing that she had no eyes, just a featureless void where her face would be. There was a sudden banging and ringing that yanked Domina out of her dream.

She fell out of the bed she had constructed in her room in her and Pearl's apartment. Thankfully she had lowered the sensitivity after the first one of these dreams she'd had so she didn't wake up in a ruined warehouse on a simulacrum of an alien planet.

Her communicator was flashing and playing a song that Domina had set for Steven years ago.

"Hello?" Domina mumbled, activating her communicator. Steven was in his room, with Connie looking over his shoulder. It had been about a month since Domina had been to Earth. Pearl was supposed to be back in the next few days and she had asked Steven if they could put off the next healing session so that Domina could be there when Pearl got back and help deal with the fallout of the mission.

"Hey, Domina uh..." Steven looked at Connie nervously then back through the camera. "Are you busy?"

"Always." Domina sighed. "But I've got..." She spared a glance at the clock and groaned. "Stars, twenty minutes until I have to be at a meeting with an Onyx from the Beta Quadrant."

"Oh," Steven said, suddenly at a loss for words. Connie stepped in though.

"What about after that?"

"I'm supposed to talk with Yellow Pearl about the new test site on 23-T72," Domina said dryly.

"...Are you going to be free anytime soon?"

"Steven, what's going on?" Domina asked, getting to her feet, the communicator bobbed to follow her.

"Well, I have an idea? For a thing, Stevima could try?" Steven sounded probably the most unsure Domina had ever heard him. She stopped in the doorway of her room and let the door close behind her.

"Ok... should I be worried?" She asked. He and Connie stared at each other as if having a silent conversation. Domina watched the time tick towards her deadline and began to say she had to go.

She was interrupted by Steven finally blurting out what was on his mind. "Pink Diamond's shards are corrupted!"

"Wha- how?" Domina wasn't entirely sure what she was asking 'how' to, but Steven and Connie were more than willing to answer every 'how' she had.

"I don't think Stevima can heal her." Steven finished after barrelling past the point where she was supposed to be halfway across Homeworld finally, sagging from relief as Domina rubbed the set of her gem. "But they could probably at least uncorrupt her and then you could take the shards back to Homeworld, for like... a funeral or something." He paused and frowned "Do gems have funerals?"

"Not like humans do," Domina said staring, eyes unfocused at a place between Connie and Steven's heads trying to process all of this.

"So, what do you think?" Connie asked eagerly. Domina glanced up at the time and hesitated. It

would be one more of her mother's mistakes to rectify, and it would bring Yellow some peace she knew, not to mention Blue...

"I'll be there in an hour or so."

* * *

Stevima really considered putting Connie on their shoulders to make this trek faster. But instead, they stopped at the edge of the quarry, where fragments of yellow police tape hung from two stakes at the entrance.

"So like, are there any other corrupted gem shards we should worry about?" Stevima asked.

"Maybe," Connie said, picking her way along a few rocks, she stopped next to them at the pool. "I personally think that's what happened to the gem shards at the strawberry battlefield." Stevima felt green.

"Ugh... They've both eaten bits of those."

"Well there probably weren't any gem shards _in_ the strawberries, more likely it's in the plants themselves."

"I don't think that makes it better, Connie."

When Stevima summoned their bagpipes and began to play they instantly felt like this time something was different.

Usually, Quartz-boy-wonder had to work his magic on any corrupted gems they dealt with. They had to remember what they were before Stevima could iron out the specifics.

But you couldn't really do much with a plant, and gem shards weren't particularly sentient, cluster notwithstanding. So their first thought upon entering the swirl of the shards' consciousness was _loud_.

So they blew over it.

* * *

Bagpipes were loud. Connie knew this from ten years of first-hand experience. She also knew that they were intended to be played outside, on rolling hills. But the canyon seemed to be doing a good job of focusing the acoustics. Stevima was also playing louder than Connie ever remembered hearing them play, and the song was different.

She had watched Stevima uncorrupt hundreds of gems and every time was roughly the same from the outside, though she knew from talking with Stevima and Steven and Domina that it wasn't like that from their perspective.

This was entirely different though. The song was disjointed, longing and regret poured into every note. The wind picked up and the moss began to rise and then so did Stevima. And what looked like a pink cloud began to hover overhead, until there was a particularly high note and countless flowers began to descend on the quarry like snowflakes.

* * *

Stevima could feel a whirl of emotions within them. Power and strength and joy. Pure joy. This was something far beyond what they should be able to do. Far beyond what anyone expected them to be capable of. Even 'Team Mommy Issues' had only planned on uncorrupting the shards when they fused. But the moment everything had settled, Stevima could see the potential in front of them.

They saw the threads between the gem shards, they could see how they would fit together like puzzle pieces. Shards, if 'Kiss of Pink' could heal a diamond then why couldn't they? They were more powerful, there was more of them than there had been all those years ago in the nephrite's dropship.

So they pulled and drew in the pieces of Pink Diamond from all around the planet where the winds had taken them. They felt determination and relief from somewhere not within either of their gems. They could fix this.

They pushed aside Domina's panic at that feeling from somewhere they couldn't identify, now was not the time.

They pushed aside Steven's worry that they were strong enough to do this. They were half diamond, they could do anything.

They pushed aside the fact that they could feel a sharp pain in their forehead, their gem growing hotter, and the stab of their gem in their stomach, and the blood dripping from their nose, they were so close.

The last shard finally slid into place and Stevima laughed as they felt the gem began to hum with energy. The darkness of the mindscape faded as they drifted back to the ground. They saw Connie staring at them with wide eyes and opened their mouth to say something as the world continued to lighten from the pain in their head and stomach. At one point they felt the gem leave their hand. Shortly afterward they hit the ground, and then as the world went white, they stopped existing.

* * *

Five thousand six hundred and forty-three years ago, Pink Diamond had planned with Rose Quartz to finally end the war. To finally get the other diamonds to listen to her and actually respect her ideas for once.

She had expected to reform on White's ship, or maybe Blue's, and to be so relieved when they told her that they had given up the planet for her. And she was excited to check in with Rose, and see what help she could provide in maybe breathing some more life into the planet.

She did not expect to land in a quarry, on Earth, with an older human male at her feet and... something else. Pink Diamond looked around surprised, and saw another human, staring at her open-mouthed, like many humans tended to.

"Uh, well hello there!" Pink Diamond said softly with a smile, lowering herself slightly to seem less threatening. "Don't be scared, have you seen another gem around, lots of curls, in a big white dress?"

Her words seemed to snap the human female out of her stupor and Pink Diamond watched as she dashed over to the other two.

"Steven, Domina?" She asked, frantically touching their necks and bending down to their mouths. "Oh no, this was not supposed to happen." Then she lifted the human's star shirt and cleared the other beings hair from their face, revealing a pink gem like Rose's and a white...

And that was when Pink Diamond decided that something in her and Rose's plan, had gone very, very wrong.


	7. Chapter 7

**I am really sorry, I intended for this to come out about ten hours ago but this day (and chapter) just did not cooperate with me. I'm glad everyone enjoyed Mondays chapter and I really hope you like the way I've decided to characterize pink diamond, I had fun trying to figure out her personality.**

**Thank you guys for reading, no beta this chapter but she'll be back next time.**

**Enjoy!**

When the mission had departed it had been behind schedule. Pink Pearl and Domina had lingered giving each other reminders and assurances for long enough that Feldspar joked about adding an extra month to their mission time. Domina had actually followed them into low orbit until they entered lightspeed and even she couldn't keep up.

So it was strange that Pink Pearl hadn't heard anything from her in 2 days. Especially considering they were due to land today.

"I'm sure everything's fine," Feldspar said after her 3rd call to Domina went directly to the diamonds inbox.

"Probably, but still." Pink Pearl glanced up at the screen that showed the ship docking in Homeworld. "It's unlike her."

Blue was waiting for them when they finally departed the ship. Just Blue. Pink glanced around the hangar confused, expecting to feel a gentle breeze or hear a cry of joy, or anything really.

"Welcome back," Blue said softly, seconds before she was enveloped in a hug from Feldspar.

"Stars I never thought I'd be happy to be back on homeworld" Feldspar put her down and Blue pearl laughed while trying to straighten her cape. Pink Pearl smiled slightly.

"Just you?" she asked.

"Yellow and Jet are back at the citadel"

"And Domina?" Pink pearl took another glance around, and after a thought looked up.

"She's back on Earth," Blue Pearl frowned slightly. "Some kind of an emergency I think, she canceled a meeting with Yellow two days ago and no ones heard from her since. I assumed she would have told you."

A black pit of dread formed in Pink Pearl's gem. Realistically nothing had probably happened to Domina but it was rare for her to just disappear like that.

"Has anyone tried contacting the Crystal Gems," Pink Pearl asked. "surely White or 5XG would respond."

"No, but you know they would let us know if something was wrong," Blue said.

"Yeah besides, Domina's a diamond, she can take care of herself." Feldspar patted her back gently. None of this was really reassuring. Theoretically yes, Domina could take care of herself. She was a fully developed gem that was well over four thousand years old. In practice, though this was the same woman who had thrown herself out an airlock when there were dozens of beings that actually _could _survive the vacuum of space standing nearby.

"I should still check in." Pink Pearl said "She was having issues keeping track of time and it's odd that she hasn't responded to any calls"

"Well, before you go running off to Earth can I at least convince you both to come back to the citadel to help us sort through all this information. We need to get processes in motion."

"Ah yes!" Feldspar said taking a step back "On that note, I think I'll make sure everything gets unloaded"

"Feldspar," Blue Pearl said with a small smile. "Are you telling me you don't want to go try to talk to two diamonds about everything that's wrong with their colonies?"

"Oh I hate to steal your spotlight, anyway someone has to make sure these bubbles make it into the right holding cells."

* * *

The Crystal Gems had been a thorn in Pink Diamond's side from almost the moment gem activity had started on Earth. And she had thrown as much at them as possible until the other diamonds had finally gotten tired of her inability to regain control and took over the war effort.

It was then that she had finally met Rose Quartz in her new position and when she had finally decided that perhaps some of the Crystal Gem's ideas were less radical than she had thought.

That still didn't make it any less awkward when they showed up and saw her standing over two unconscious... Somethings and a human that was panicking. Thankfully there were only three of them though, White's old pearl, who basically knew what was going on and the fusion who should pick up pretty fast, after all, it was part sapphire. There was also an overcooked amethyst who was just _adorable_

"Woah...what?" the amethyst stared at her, she had drawn a whip but it was held limply at her side.

"Pink Diamond." the fusion growled, both of its gauntlets had been summoned as it took an aggressive stance. Pink Diamond didn't even know if she _could _summon her weapon, and more importantly, she was not here to fight.

"Look I didn't do anything! Where's Rose? What are..." She gestured at the things with gems lying nearby.

"Steven!" White's pearl rushed past her to the male with the quartz gem in his stomach.

"He's fine I think, other than being unconscious." The human said she had two fingers on the male neck, Pink Diamond was pretty sure she was human. "And Domina's still corporeal so she's...probably ok?"

"So where the crap did she come from?" the Amethyst asked gesturing to Pink Diamond

"Stevima healed her." The human said getting to her feet.

"Who's Stevima?" Pink Diamond asked, trying to get at least some answers

"What how can they even do that?" The amethyst completely ignored her. White's pearl shrugged.

"What do you mean healed?" Pink Diamond tried again, gritting her teeth.

"Stevima's gotten far more powerful than I could have ever predicted." The Fusion said, it had unsummoned it's gauntlets, apparently deciding Pink Diamond wasn't a threat.

"Where's Rose?" Pink Diamond finally snapped, looking around for the only person on this planet who seemed to listen to her. Of course, asking didn't help.

"Well we need to get them back to the beach house," White's pearl ordered lifting the large male over her shoulder who was probably 'steven'. "amethyst grab Domina."

"STOP IGNORING ME!" Pink Diamond shouted stomping her foot, the quarry shook and the indent of where her foot landed began to darken, thankfully she pulled her emotions back before anything started sprouting. "What are any of you talking about? Where's Rose and who are those two?" Pink Diamond pointed at the taller...thing that the amethyst was holding. "What did _she_ do to White? What's going on? "

* * *

"_-orry my daugh-"_

Domina came back to consciousness slowly with her dreams only leaving shards of memories in her mind. She could sense enough to know that people were arguing around her, the rest of her focus was in try not to panic. She didn't open her eyes, instead, she gently raised a hand and prodded at the faces of her gem. Nothing _felt_ cracked. But that didn't explain why her head hurt so much.

"Domina are you awake?" Connie's voice was close by, she could feel a blanket on her, and what was probably the couch underneath her.

"I am," Domina said, finally carefully opening her eyes. There was no burst of pain or blur of colors, so she sat up and looked around. "What happens-"

"Ok ok," Pink Diamond's voice was only slightly familiar to Domina, half-remembered from a handful of recordings she had seen over the years. The Diamond was standing in the kitchen, with a slightly haggard looking Steven. "Even if I can believe that Rose would give herself up to make some kind of hybrid there is no possible way that White would ever turn into something like that!" She gestured at Domina, who carefully got to her feet.

"I wouldn't go that far." She muttered. "What happened, Steven? Stevima wasn't supposed to heal her. Stevima shouldn't have been _able _to heal her."

"Stevima must have decided that they were capable," Garnet said.

"That's another thing!" Pink Diamond blurted. "White would never fuse with anyone."

"I'm not White Diamond." Domina said with a sigh. All of this was just adding to her headache, this was the last thing they needed.

"Well duh, I can see that." Pink Diamond said rolling her eyes. Domina blinked at the diamond. The third, well fourth depending if her mother counted, that she had ever met. She was trying to rectify what she was seeing with every scrap of information she had ever read about Pink and she had to say she was a little underwhelmed.

"How long have I been out?" Domina asked.

"2 days," Connie said, and Domina felt her heart stop, or it would have. She fumbled for her screen and found it's remains in her pocket. She groaned, the internal circuits were fried.

"Stars Pearl's supposed to be back today, I need to get back to Homeworld and-" Domina's paused and stared at Pink Diamond.

"Yeah, you gotta take her too, otherwise Bismuth's going to break out her Breaking Point plans or something."

"Amethyst!" Pearl snapped. Domina smiled tensely.

"I can come with you if you want..." Steven offered. Domina glanced at Steven and shook her head.

"No, get some rest Steven." She said. "This is... well it's Diamond business."

* * *

Yellow Diamond had really expected worse from the report Pink Pearl gave about the mission to the outer colonies. A few of her colonies were included in the report as most had fallen easily into line after the start of Era 3. Several were from Domina's colonies, and the rest were Blue's which was to be expected.

"We should consider a thorough investigation of anyone put in charge of these colonies in the future." Blue Pearl said.

"Yes because we've never done that in the past, we just let anyone manage a part of the empire." Blue Diamond replied dryly. Thankfully they weren't in a public session, the rest of the empire really didn't need to see the leaders of Homeworld sniping at each other.

"Blue she has a point," Yellow said gently. Blue rolled her eyes and was probably about to say something else that would begin the process of derailing the meeting into the usual round of bickering, but she was interrupted by some commotion from outside. Yellow Diamond saw Jet frown and bring up her screen. Pink Pearl continued talking, agreeing with Blue Pearl, outlining her ideas on qualifications. But Yellow Diamond was focused on Jet who's eye went wide before she raised her head to look at the diamonds than at Pink Pearl.

And then the doors to the chamber opened and for a moment Yellow wasn't sure that she could trust her eyes.

She had thought a lot over the years about all the things that she would say to Pink if she got the chance. But she had never thought that she would get the chance. And for the first time in a long time, she felt something other than grief and anger from Blue Diamond. Now it was hope, and joy and relief. She was aware of others in the room as she got to her feet, lagging well behind Blue Diamonds rush to envelope the younger diamond in her arms. She could see the pearl's surprise, Pink Pearl's frozen open mouth, and she did notice that Domina seemed anxious and not quite as overjoyed. But that was something to worry about for later.

Pink Diamond was home.


	8. Chapter 8

**And here we are! a little shorter than fri- er Saturdays chapter but I hope you enjoy a nice little piece of respite**

**thanks to squish for betaing! see you guys friday!**

Blue Pearl had been there when Pink Diamond had first emerged. And of any of the diamonds, Pink Diamond was probably the one she was most familiar with. And old habits did not fade, especially ones that had been so ingrained in her for millennia. She knew that recently Blue Diamond was lashing out as she had done in the first few decades of Pink Diamond's shattering, albeit with words now instead of shatterings. She felt Blue Diamond's joy in a wave that unsettled her more than any amount of anger and sorrow ever could. She started with a single step back, more of a habit than anything else, but the next thing she knew, she had left the council room and was halfway across the building, the unease finally fading from the center of her gem.

There were other things she had picked up just from the brief moment she had seen Pink Diamond. The younger diamond's confusion and unease had been relatively plain on her face but there had also some discomfort when Blue Diamond had rushed at her with a hug. Of course for every ounce of discomfort that Pink Diamond felt... Blue Pearl couldn't imagine what Pink Pearl was feeling now.

She entered the workroom and collapsed in her chair, mind spinning, trying to focus on the important things, like how to incorporate a long shattered diamond into a structure. Thankfully the door opening pulled her from her thoughts. Jet came in with Yellow and Pink behind her, all of them looked shaken, though Pink was a little more than that.

"How the stars," Jet began. "All stars, any stars, is Pink Diamond back?"

"Steven can heal gems." Yellow pointed out, she had a hand soothingly on Pink and Blue envied her. "He healed Domina."

"Domina's shards were in a pile on the floor, not on some unterraformed planet for 5 thousand years." Jet said bluntly. Pink Pearl flinched. And there was a knock at the door. "Speaking of which," She opened the door and presumably glared at Domina. "What do you want?" There was a sigh.

"Can I please come in Jet?" Domina asked.

"Why? Haven't you done eno-"

"Come on in Domina." Blue Interrupted, she wasn't willing to listen to those two bicker right now. Jet sighed and stepped aside. Domina stepped in and stopped when she saw Pink.

"I... It wasn't intentional I can tell you that." She said to the room at large. Pink Pearl had buried her face in her hands with a large sigh and shook her head.

"I didn't think it was Domina," she murmured. "But how... how is this even possible?"

"Stevima." Domina shrugged and three out of four pearls in the room nodded. "We didn't even intend to heal her just, uncorrupt her shards!"

"Well it wouldn't be the first time you didn't think something through," Jet grumbled, obviously trying to get a rise out of Domina. Blue sighed and shot her a look. But Domina just laughed half-heartedly.

"Jet, I can assure you that no Diamond has ever thought anything through."

* * *

"Blue, what's going on? That's not actually... White didn't really..." There were a lot of things that Pink Diamond was still trying to process but the circumstances around her shattering and Domina's whole... existence was still baffling.

"Oh Pink, I know it's a lot to take in." Blue Diamond hugged her tightly again and Pink Diamond did her best not to sigh.

"You've missed a lot, Pink," Yellow said, her voice wasn't as condescending as it often was, which she supposed tracked with what Ros- er Steven had said about her willingly spending time on Earth, with humans at that. At least she wasn't hugging her anymore, that had been a surprise that had just about poofed her, again.

"White did... she did shatter you." Blue's voice went somber enough to match the tears of joy that had been streaming down her face. "And Pink, you should have seen how she punished herself over it."

"Is that why Domina's... around?" Pink Diamond asked. Blue ignored her but she pretty obviously saw Yellow Diamond wince.

"And Homeworld has changed, Diamonds certainly don't have the same power they used to."

"Or the same responsibilities." Yellow quickly added.

"Ok, but like what about the Earth, or my zoo?" Pink Diamond asked, she really only cared about the zoo, Her rose quartzes had been gathering a ton of data on the humans there when she left for Earth that last time.

"Earth has... " Blue deflated even more, "Unfortunately been given over to the Crystal Gems, part of Domina and Yellow's ill thought out arrangement."

"Which certainly wasn't our fault." Yellow pointed out.

"But you'll have other colonies, we'll make sure of it," Blue said firmly and Pink was pretty sure she definitely did not want another colony. But she smiled and nodded because what else was she supposed to do?

"And the Zoo," She asked, at least for right now they were listening to what she was saying, and she'd have to take advantage of that while she could. Blue hesitated and glanced at Yellow, who cleared her throat nervously.

"I believe Pink Pearl is overseeing that, decommissioning it I believe."

"Decommission- wait" Pink Diamond reigned her outrage back in with her confusion. "Pink Pe-... My Pearl?!"

Both Yellow and Blue looked uncomfortable but Pink pressed on while she had their attention.

"What business does my Pearl have running my zoo?"

* * *

Domina walked home with Pearl in silence, which really wasn't how she wanted to spend the first day with Pearl back. Normally they would warp directly there or Domina would fly them up, to Pearl's chagrin, but Pearl had bypassed the citadel's warp pad and taken the long route through the winding streets of Homeworld. She still waved at a few gems she recognized but Domina felt... subdued. She hadn't meant for this all to go so wrong, it was just supposed to be a peaceful gesture to maybe start to make amends with Blue. It wasn't supposed to dredge someone up that would cause such... anxiety for Pearl.

Domina didn't exactly remember when she had learned that Pearl hadn't always belonged to White Diamond. It was probably something that someone let slip to her when she was younger, that kind of information usually was just given to her by accident. But she did know that talking about the diamond had always made Pearl uncomfortable or at least filled her eyes with a half vacant remembering stare. And really from everything she gleaned, she didn't see that there was much different in how Pink Diamond had treated her pearl than from how the average morganite treated theirs. But Pink Diamond made Pearl upset, and in the end, that was all Domina needed.

"Is that a new shirt?" Pearl asked, finally breaking the quiet between them as they rounded the corner to their building. Domina looked down on the shirt she had hastily thrown on two days ago before leaving for Steven's. It read "I cheated on the Turing test" which was apparently a reference to some Earth scientist.

"It is!" She said with a small smile that, thankfully, Pearl returned. "I have a few more now."

"I'm sure they're all incomprehensible."

"They will be until I show you the Earth media they reference."

"Oh. Great." Pearl stepped on to the buildings local warp and Domina hopped up next to her.

"Don't worry, Steven and White sent you music too, and I even found time to clean the apartment, kind of."

"You have been busy, resurrecting Diamonds, doing maintenance work, are you sleeping like you're supposed to be?" Pearl asked with an eyebrow raise only half-jokingly.

"Yes, Pearl." Domina said dutifully, "Of course I do."

What passed for the evening on Homeworld was mostly just a lull in activity in their section of the planet. Domina found Pearl in the corporeal section of the apartment a few minutes after they arrived, lounging and reading through reports on a couch that had taken an hour to carefully move from Earth. Domina hesitantly sat next to her. Then after, Pearl moved her arms, Domina carefully leaned down on to her shoulder. She closed her eyes and felt that for the first time in a year, despite whatever chaos she had once again just caused, everything was right in the universe.


	9. Chapter 9

**So I had a whole plan for this chapter! and then the first half of said plan turned into 2000 words. so its a little different here that is for you! thank you too squish for staying up to beta this with me. I hope you enjoy.**

Somehow, despite 5000 years and a civil war, Homeworld still hadn't changed much from Pink Diamond's perspective. After the initial thrilling whirlwind of having her back, the party attended by a large portion of Homeworld, the overseeing of the reconstruction of her court, Pink was right back where she began before she left for Earth, following around Yellow and Blue waiting for something to happen.

Blue's was interesting, they spent a lot of time listening to new music that had come out while she was... gone. And they talked a lot about the planets and civilizations that the empire had found during Era 2. But there was still overshadowing grief that didn't come out in a wave from Blue but just hung around like a slowly dissipating fog.

Yellow was, after the initial horrifying display of emotion, pretty much her same old self too. She was a little more open now, and less busy which was just a mindblowing concept to Pink. And she talked with a wider variety of gems, including the pearl which she had made the head of engineering, something that Pearl was trying to figure out if it was meant to be a joke or not.

But she still lectured Pink as if nothing had changed, drilling into her head details about Homeworld's new technologies, and current range and next projections and so on and so forth.

Neither of them mentioned Earth. Or the war. Or what she did.

And in the middle of all of this, Domina had barely said a word to her! Granted, White had never been particularly forthcoming with her presence but she was at least willing to speak to Pink. And to actually hear out her ideas, even when they were for a cut of gems that were perhaps... a little overpowered. But if Domina was still supposed to be White, 'in a way' as Yellow put it, then why was she avoiding her?

It was this line of thinking that resulted in Pink Diamond following Domina through the halls of one of Homeworld's lower court buildings. There had been a trial about some sapphire using their future vision to aid a group of gems in "borrowing" a spaceship.

A thousand years ago- er well, Pink Diamond supposed that would actually be 'five' thousand years ago, the answer would have been simple. White wouldn't have even sat in on this case. But Domina did, and instead of just having the gem shattered, well actually harvesting would be more likely for a sapphire, but anyway. Instead, she actually stood up and spoke to her.

"Where were you going?" Domina asked.

"Away, Your Brilliance," The sapphire said, "There was no plan, I have already spoken with the security hessonite about their eventual path to an area just outside the gamma quadrant." Domina nodded.

"I heard, and your cooperation is appreciated. Was Earth not considered?" Domina asked. The sapphire didn't seem surprised by the question, cause, of course, she wasn't.

"Not by them."

"But by yourself?"

"Yes." The sapphire hesitated and Pink Diamond could almost see the future revealing itself to her. A half a second before Domina turned to the presiding hafnon, Pink Diamond saw the sapphire's face relax.

"Have a Zircon contact the Crystal Gem's and ask if they will give asylum." She said, then turned back to the sapphire. "Exile, to Earth or the delta quadrant if the Crystal Gem's refuse you."

After the Court let out, Pink Diamond made her way through the slightly parted crowd to follow Domina. She didn't even know why at first but then again it wasn't like she had anything better to do than to listen to Yellow ramble about colonies that weren't hers. Domina went out on to the street instead of taking the warp pad like any normal elite. Pink stayed a few yards back, watching Domina's black head bob in the sea of normal gems. The crowds didn't part for her which Pink Diamond thought was odd, especially since they definitely did for her. A few times she was worried she would lose Domina when gems would stop her, telling her how glad they were she was back. But Domina stopped too. Just for no reason, to chat with a ruby or a bismuth or even once a fusion which... was a sight to see on Homeworld definitely.

Eventually, after watching this several times, Pink Diamond realized, sort of what she was doing. Humans had a tendency to use their size to indicate their confidence or aggression and essentially Domina was doing just that. Which made sense, because she was apparently half human. But to see it in context with gems, to see someone with White Diamond's gem in their head, hunch their shoulders and crouch down to a ruby's side, or hold themselves open to a bismuth to show they were no threat and also not the dominant one in this conversation was... unnerving.

But it was fascinating. Pink Diamond followed Domina a few more blocks to a construction site where she met with a fusion of a bismuth and morganite and talked about site plans, just barely out of earshot from Pink. Then she got a call from Pink's Pearl and Pink Diamond tried not to frown as she saw the pearl laugh at something Domina said and chat with her eagerly.

Blue had told her that White had taken her pearl after she had been shattered and that now Domina and the pearl were close, which didn't even make any sense gemetically. That pearl had been made for her! Pink Diamond let this fact distract herself for long enough that Domina had nearly wandered off, heading in the direction of the Citadel.

The moment Domina stepped into the Citadel, Pink Diamond saw her body language change. She stood up straight, walked with more purpose, but didn't stop acknowledging the gems that passed her. Pink Diamond blinked and followed her so closely that next thing she knew she was in Yellow Diamond's Office.

"Yellow!" Domina said, suddenly lifting into the air, giving Pink Diamond two things to avoid panicking over. Since when could White fly?!

"What, Domina?" Yellow asked, she didn't look up at first, just sort of grumbled and raised an eyebrow.

"So I talked with Yellow Pearl."

Pink Diamond took that as her chance to back out of the room, which worked until she ran into the wall with a soft 'thunk'.

That caused Yellow to actually look up. Their eyes met and Pink frantically shook her head as Yellow stared at her confused and Domina continued talking.

"We'll know within a month or so if there's any chance of incubation and it'll at least feel like progress forward."

Five thousand years ago, Yellow would have scolded her for eavesdropping on a conversation between her and White and there would have been an argument about it. Now, Yellow looked baffled but simply continued her conversation with Domina.

"Will it damage any potential to the site's future production?" Yellow Diamond asked. "That is the only thing I would be concerned about."

Pink Diamond gently patted the panel next to her, trying to get the door open, and hoping that it would open quietly.

"Moss Agate thinks it should be fine, there are some figures on plant life during the early stages of kindergartening, if you want to look over them." Domina talked on, like a mixture of White's formality and... well the only other human Pink Diamond had to compare her too was Steven's mate who was incredibly informative when it came to humanity's development after the gem war, both eloquent and informal. Finally, the door opened.

"Oh, are you two talking?" Yellow rose her voice to cover the sound of the door and Pink Diamond almost didn't believe it. Yellow actually helping her with something that she would normally call immature? This was definitely new. But still, She stepped out of the door and around the corner.

"Why of course," Domina said, and _that_ voice sounded familiar. Like White when she was annoyed with Pink's questions about gem history and wanted to change the subject. "We _always_ talk, sometimes even at a reasonable volume."

The door closed and muffled the sound of Domina and Yellow's voices, and Pink Diamond sighed with relief. Really this whole exercise had certainly been informative, even if Pink Diamond had gathered no more information than confirmation that Domina was nothing like White. Eventually, the doors opened and this time Pink Diamond was careful in following Domina, now out of pure curiosity in finding more pieces of the puzzle.

From Yellow's office, Domina walked down the hallway, past another diamond size door, and then paused outside a normal door and knocked. Thankfully, Pink Diamond had followed at enough of a distance that she had enough time to duck out of sight behind a pillar. A few seconds later, she heard the door open and just as she poked her head out of her hiding place Domina disappeared into the room and the door shut behind her.

What kind of Diamond knocked on- ok Pink Diamond could remember that White knocked before entering her rooms, even when she was in trouble, so maybe there were echos of White Diamond's personality in Domina? Humans often had personalities similar to their parents, even when removed from them at a young age. Though surely something like that wouldn't transfer from a gem. As to how that exactly happened... Pink Diamond kind of hoped that White had documented the process somewhere, it couldn't be an easy task, it would have had to take deliberate thought.

After a few moments, Pink Diamond moved to the door, to listen in.

"-think it'll be fine." Domina was saying.

"Well, I certainly hope so." That was Yellow's Pearl or former pearl she supposed. "Otherwise I don't know what to tell you!"

"Hey, it's going to be alright, Yelp." Another voice... A feldspar maybe? "Really, all you could do was try your best."

"Yes, yes, I know." Yellow's Pearl sighed and then that other one piped up, the one that Yellow trusted as an engineer.

"Diamond, so I was thinking about the issue you were having with your ship."

"I said I don't want a new one Forest." Pink frowned. Wasn't the headship destroyed? Along with Pink's ship which was a whole 'nother issue.

"And I say that technically you already _have_ a new ship, you had to have replaced every component by- What, Yellow?"

The voices on the other side of the door suddenly lowered and Pink Diamond pressed closer to try to hear them, only to nearly fall into Domina the moment the door slid open.

"Gah!" Pink Diamond flailed her arms in an attempt to stay up and Domina folded hers. Pink was taller than her, by a good foot and yet still felt small under the weight of an incredibly familiar gaze.

"Don't you have something better to do than to spend all day following me around?" Domina asked, her voice had gone cold, and she had drawn herself up to her full height, setting her jaw and narrowing her eyes. Establishing a hierarchy with eye contact.

"I, uh..." Pink Diamond stammered. "Yeah! Yeah, I've got lots of things to do!" She finally spat out. She swore that the wind had gone still like it did when White entered a room.

"Well," Domina said firmly, two pearls and an off-color staring at Pink Diamond from over her shoulder. "Then I suggest you go do them and leave me alone."


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten chapters down, stars know how many more to go. This chapter went far longer than I was expecting it to but I'm happy with it, and it's at a good ending place. (this is one of those chapters where I would loooooove to hear your theories, if not here, then over on tumblr, or discord!)**

**Anyway, thank you for reading, and as always, please enjoy**

* * *

For the first time in 5000 years, Blue Diamond felt like she could properly think. It was like a fog had been lifted now that Pink was back and she finally felt as if she wasn't just floating from task to task. But of course, she was still a diamond. And she still had duties. Even if she had been putting them off for the last few weeks to spend time with Pink.

The Holik system was home to one of the most distant diplomatic outposts. Holik-9 specifically, processed data from the spies and diplomats that resided in the surrounding galaxies. And it was for that reason that Blue Diamond wondered if she had perhaps shown too much favoritism to the outer colony in the past, especially if it resulted in Catapelite Facet 9F4S Cut 2PN believing that she could get away with disobeying the authority- with disobeying Homeworld so thoroughly.

Blue Diamond stepped off the warp pad into Homeworlds central cell block, into what was essentially an empty corridor. There were guards, mostly quartzes that stood a little more rigidly as she passed them. There were one or two garnets that saluted her as she passed. And one Fayalite that ran straight into her the moment Blue Diamond rounded the corner to Catapelite 2PN's cell.

"OH my stars!" the Fayalite jumped backward and bowed low enough that her hair bent to touch the floor. "Your Lustrousness, please I beg your forgiveness I did not mean to-" Blue Diamond waved her off and continued forward towards the cell.

Catapelite 2PN paced in her cell, turned pale orange by the yellow barrier separating her from the corridor. She stopped though as Blue Diamond came into view and saluted.

"My diamond, I, of course, was not expecting to be blessed with your presence," 2PN said her expression somewhat relieved.

"Your Zircon said that you requested an audience."

"I did! I simply wished to explain my actions."

"To me and not the court?" Blue Diamond asked raising an eyebrow. "You would be better off stating this to your zircon before your trial." 2PN hesitated.

"Is the trial really necessary my diamond?"

"Are you questioning our authority?"

"Not your authority of course." The catapelite said quickly. "Not your's or Yellow Diamonds of course but surely you can understand why we chose to ignore such orders." Blue Diamond pursed her lips. Admitting deliberate insubordination. It would have made things a lot easier if there _was _a zircon here.

"Humor me." Blue Diamond folded her arms in front of her.

"It's one thing to change Homeworld at its core, where there is no one to see us but other gems. But out there-there are civilizations looking for any moment of weakness." 2PN kept her gestures short and placating. "What do you expect us to do when those of the elite class begin to grind from lack of recognition of their status combined by such an assignment that, while very essential my diamond, keeps them away from the luxuries of Homeworld itself and the empires inner colonies."

"I expect you to do what Homeworld had ordered," Blue Diamond said firmly. "You were told to cease pearl production and free all that belonged to those under your control."

"And I would have my diamond, but-"

"You were not chosen for your excuses 2PN." Blue Diamond interjected. "You were given the position and expected to fulfill it to the best of your abilities. Seeing as that you are lacking. It will be given to someone else." Blue Diamond saw the gems mouth snap shut and she nodded, before stepping away, hands balled tightly. She had almost rounded the corner when she heard 2PN again.

"Don't you wish you could go back to the time before an organic ruled Homeworld?" The gem spoke up.

"An organic doesn't rule Homeworld." Blue Diamond snapped, almost reflexively, spinning around to see the gem pressed as close to the barrier as she could.

"Doesn't she?"

"2PN, I suggest if you want me to discount this conversation in your trial you stop talking."

"Of course," 2PN said, nodding her head and saluting. "My Diamond."

* * *

"You have to reinforce with something stronger." Yellow Diamond crouched across from Forest, peering at the fracture line in the injectors material chamber.

"I told you," Forest continued to spread the pale purple goop across the fracture on her side of the table. "I'm going for flexibility, rather than strength.

"Are either of you listening to me?" Jet sighed. She really didn't know what she had expected.

"I told you to talk to someone other than me," Forest said flatly.

"I am." Yellow Diamond pushed herself to her feet. "Of course a Lapis makes sense for the fracking itself but there are other terraforming gems, and all Lapis are accounted for, lazuli, armenus and lacedaemonius."

"Just because they're accounted for doesn't mean their incapable of collapsing a kindergarten." Jet pointed out.

"No..." Yellow Diamond frowned. "But it does mean that there's only a thousand four hundred personal records to look through as opposed to an entire empire's worth." Jet tried not to be dramatic around the diamonds but she couldn't suppress a groan.

"This is ridiculous."

"Blue does keep track of her gems better than I do. If you asked her personally-"

"No." Jet said firmly. "I'm not involving her, I didn't even want to involve you." Yellow Diamond pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders before bending back over the injector.

"Your decision"

* * *

After her embarrassing encounter with Domina in the citadel, it took Pink Diamond a few days to track down Domina. There were still a lot of questions she had about the world she had reformed into and somewhere in the range of 85% of them were about Domina. Well.. and steven too but she was more accessible.

She finally tracked Domina down to a private garage in the White District. Its intent was probably for like light kite manufacture, er well, roaming eyes? Whatever little ships were called these days. Anyway, it was instead mostly empty, but the moment she entered the warehouse-like structure she could hear the third movement of _Spacetimes Curve_ playing from some very low-grade speakers.

"Please," Domina's whine was muffled as Pink Diamond approached, slowly and confused. "Please change the music." There was a laugh, slightly high pitched and just... happy.

"You're the one that practically begged me to stick around." Her pearl's voice dropped a little bit and adopted that weird provincial accent that Domina had. "_Pearl I promise, I just want to spend some time together, Please Pearl you can pick the music."_

"I don't sound like that!" Domina protested half-heartedly, laughing. Pink could see them now. Her pearl was standing on the landing ramp of a dropship pod while Domina was half underneath it. Domina's White jacket was tossed on the ground haphazardly and a screen hung midair, volume on full, playing the music.

"Sure you do, you really think that after all this time I don't know what you sound lik-" Her Pearl trailed off and Pink Diamond realized she had been spotted.

"Oh um... hi." Pink Diamond said. Domina's legs jerked, and there was a sharp _clang_ and a stifled scream.

"How does that hurt even more now?" That seemed to snap Pink Diamonds pearl out of it. She dived to the side and yanked Domina out from under the ship.

"Are you ok?!" She asked panicked. Domina nodded and rubbed her gem.

"Yes fine." She said through gritted teeth, then finally looked at Pink Diamond. "Need something Pink?"

"I uh... just wanted to talk." Pink Diamond said feeling even more awkward. Her Pearl didn't meet her eyes, just checked Domina's gem and nodded.

"Blue wanted help with something, I'll see you at that meeting with the Ultyn system later Domina," she said.

"...alright." Domina visibly deflated and watched as the Pearl left the building.

"...You let my pearl make fun of you?" Pink Diamond asked. Instantly Domina's face went stony.

"Alright, let's get a few things straight," Domina said. She set some tool down on the ground with a louder clang than necessary. "She is not _your_ pearl and she is not _my _pearl. She's just Pearl. Pearl HGC-5 if you want to get really specific. She doesn't belong to anyone, she does what she wants and I love her for that." The wind went still and Pink Diamond once again felt like she was looking at a tall gem with the most disapproving expression in the universe on her face, instead of a half gem, a foot shorter than her, wearing an expression of indignation.

"And if you ever forget that, we are going to have problems. Understand?"

Pink Diamond did the only thing she could do in that situation. She nodded.

"Good," Domina said with a smile, her face instantly lightening. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I uh..." Pink Diamond frantically searched for the right question to start this off. "So um... is that your ship? Yellow said you didn't like the headship." Domina shrugged.

"It didn't corner well, this is The Styx." She said, then Domina also hesitated. "You can look around if you like. It's not much bit."

"No no that's ok," Pink said, though she really wanted to. "So.. you don't have any of White's memories? And you grow?"

"I did.." Domina said, "Grow that is, my bodies not organic anymore and it hasn't been a concern for several thousand years." She paused, and after a moment slid her jacket back on. "And I don't have any of my mother's memories, that's not really how that works."

"Well, I know that." Pink said while she processed the 'anymore' part of that statement. "So if your half human where did the human part come from?"

"My... wait Yellow didn't tell you?" Domina looked puzzled

"You really think Yellow would tell me anything actually interesting?" Pink gave Domina a knowing look and to her surprise, her fellow diamond laughed.

"Alright, alright. Good point." Domina's hand drifted up and touched a circular lump in her shirt. Like there was another gem under there. "Let me... Let me tell you about my father. Vitus Gellia. He..." Domina shook her head like she was still trying to make herself believe it. "He made White Diamond fall in love with him."

* * *

"Will Connie be able to make it this time around?" Domina asked. Steven frowned from his place on her screen and pulled out his phone. The plans for her visit to the Apatite assigned to the scouting mission were in front of her. As she walked out of her room

"No..." Steven said after a long moment. "No, she has a Theory of Literature paper the next day."

"Alright, well it shouldn't take too-" And it was at that point that everything behind her went black, and everything in front of her began to shake.

Your standard single access multidimensional space was connected to a geothermal power source and could generate as many rooms as keyed to it. Urban life on homeworld had taken that to the next logical extreme, with multiple access points, and nearly infinite rooms, run through a series of generators and load balancers. This worked almost perfectly and really cut down on the amount of residential space necessary on the planet. It worked perfectly that is until an earthquake severed the connection and everything turned off at once.

It took domina a moment to realize exactly what was happening as she saw the lights and heard the screams behind her.

"Domina, what's going on?!" Steven shouted.

"I'll call you back!" Domina said, batting the screen away, more focused now on making sure the door didn't close. Air pressure could do a lot but holding open what was essentially a rift, in reality, might be a little much. "This way!" She shouted into the abyss, trying to keep the roof from crumbling over top of her, hoping that someone on the other side would hear her. The portal fought back and Domina felt her gem warm significantly under the strain. This wasn't going to work, it was too much, she was going to need to drop something and hope for the best. She looked at the floor that she had previously been standing on and saw that it had caved in. The shattered windows showed that the whole building was falling. She was falling, she hated falling, she always ended up falling, that's why she didn't fly! Winds erupted before Domina had time to think about her thoughts and her eyes went dark as she felt her body step forward into the abyss, a body wreathed in wind and light.

When she came too she was outside in homeworlds half light covered in dust with her neighbors around her.

"_-orry"_ ran through her mind as she blinked and winced at the pain in her gem.

"My Diamond." A Jade who lived below her and pearl smiled, almost in tears. "Thank you, I thought we were shattered or worse." That broke the dam and someone helped her to her feet and clapped her on the back while Domina stared around bewildered at the collapsed building around her and the rescue gems standing by, still unburying gems. She almost missed the ruby tugging at her pant leg.

"Y-yes?" Domina asked, trying to focus on anything, anything that wasn't going to just be more confusing. It helped that she recognized this ruby. "Yes Leggy?"

"Hey um, Pink Pearl wanted to know if your ok and Yellow Diamond said that they need you in a meeting now," Leggy said quickly, while 4ND yelled at her from the far side of what used to be the building.

"Right... Alright. Yes, I'll uh." Domina looked around and sighed. She was going to need another new screen. "Can I borrow your screen?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello! so this chapter wasn't actually supposed to turn out like this (story of my life right?) but I'm happy with it. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I am going to try to make sure that the next few chapters go up on time but I close on my house this week! and my life is even more chaotic than normal. **

**Thanks to squish for betaing this week and Enjoy the chapter!**

It took until Domina appeared on screen and said those all too familiar words for Pink Pearl to finally relax.

"I'm alright, really Pearl."

"Domina, you had a building fall on you."

"Well sort of but I was in a pocket dimension at the time so does it really count?" Domina gave her a teasing grin, and Pink rolled her eyes. Domina looked shaken but that was to be expected.

"Leggy told me something about Yellow calling a meeting?" Domina asked. She wasn't focused on Pearl, instead she looked just past the screen. Pearl imagined the chaos there, had to be even worse than it was here, halfway across the planet. The buildings here were squatter, and sturdier. Granted, the inside of the office where she and Blue had been discussing adding troops to several outer colony planets was completely thrown into disarray. But the building hadn't fallen down on top of them.

"She did." Pink Pearl said, glancing at the message in the top right of her screen. "Though it'll be awhile before anyone gets there, a third of the warp network is down according to Feldspar."

"Of course it is. If anyone from White courts calls from off planet, my screen is buried back there somewhere," Domina said. There was a soft sound that Pink Pearl didn't quite pick up, then Domina smiled, looked down, presumably at the ruby, and shook her head. "No, no, I won't take your screen, you need it, I insist."

"I'll transfer your account to mine, for now. You really need to be more careful with those Domina. This is the third one in a month."

"This time it wasn't my fault!" Domina said faking indignation, then her face took on a more serious expression. "I'll be along eventually, they need help here." Pearl nodded.

"Be careful."

Domina grinned. "I'm always careful."

The screen closed and behind her Pink could hear Blue Pearl checking in with the emergency crews from around the city. Homeworld had experienced quakes for centuries, since the end of Era 1, but never one of this magnitude. Pink Pearl went about opening Domina's account and putting it on standby when another message came in.

"Pearl HGC-5," Pink Pearl said, barely even thinking before she opened the transmission.

"Er... yes." A quartz said. Pink Pearl looked up and saw one of the plume agates that oversaw Homeworld's main cell block, she looked stressed which did not bode well. "There's been a problem, one of the prisoners you and Feldspar brought back has..." There were a few others in the background and Pink could see there was some discussion about terminology going on.

"Has what?" Pearl asked fearing the worst. "Which prisoner?"

"Catapelite Facet 9F4S Cut 2PN." The agate said quickly, that question at least was easy. "And I suppose I'll just show you." She turned the screen towards the cell. The access pad was cut straight through, the barrier gone, and on the back wall of the cell, painted in unreasonably crisp letters were the words: **Requisitioned to restore order**.

* * *

The citadel was far away enough from the epicenter of the quake that it had only received the aftershocks of the event. That being said, it had still been enough to toss Yellow Diamond, at full size, completely out of her chair. When they faded and she gathered her wits to her Yellow Diamond immediately went into damage control mode.

Thirty three percent of the warp network was down, primarily in the White and Blue districts. That meant dispatching crews to get them back online. Emergency services, which had been a brilliant idea on Yellow Pearl's part, were taking care of getting any gems who were trapped out from underneath rubble and buildings. Rescuing people from the interdimensional rooms was a little bit more of a challenge. Something she thought on as she made her way to the council chamber. Yellow Pearl had beaten her there and was sitting with Forest at one of the desks the Pearls (and Domina on occasion) used.

"It's not an ideal solution," Forest muttered, watching a screen's worth of data scroll past her as she quickly fitted mechanical components into place, gem constantly glowing as she pulled them from her pearl.

"Yes, but no form is better than being stuck in an endless void." Yellow Pearl said. There was a voice, one of the peridots that Domina was close with, 9NY.

"It will be a much smaller tear to sustain, really not much different than opening a warp stream."

"Yes, but this is getting a little crystalline for me," Forest grumbled.

"Oh you Era 2 gems, crystal is a perfectly functional resource that has served us for hundreds of thousands of years without incident. Era 2 materials just aren't as-"

"Now is not the time 9NY, thank you for your assistance. I'm sure Forest has it well in hand." Yellow Pearl interrupted with a roll of her eye.

"Of course I do." Forest said, "It's simple enough, a ruby could do it with one arm behind her back."

"Well use two hands then," 9NY retorted. Yellow Pearl intelligently closed the channel, cutting off Forest's rampage before it started.

"Go. Do you need me to help?" Yellow Pearl asked.

"No, I do need Diamond to get out of my way," Forest said, storming towards the door. Yellow Diamond stepped aside.

"Thank you, Forest!" Yellow Pearl called. There was a loud grunt of acceptance before the pearl left the room.

"That's one more problem solved." Yellow Diamond said dryly.

"It is," Yellow Pearl said. "Blue and Pink are accounted for and safe, No sign of Jet but I don't believe that means anything. They're on their way."

"Probably not." Yellow Diamond shrugged. "Blue and Pink are also safe on this end. Blue is on her way and Domina..."

"Is fine. Pink said she got in touch." Yellow Pearl said briskly. They worked in the same room for a few hours more before the others began to trickle in. It was familiar and Yellow Diamond had to admit, it was easier working with someone who had already anticipated what needed doing and did it.

Jet arrived first, covered in dust, barking orders to a few platoons of soldiers to get major roads cleared. She was followed by Blue Diamond who was getting messages from her own areas affected by the quake. Then Blue Pearl and Pink Pearl with the news of the escaped catapelite from the main cell block.

Finally, after another hour, Domina drifted in, mid-air, caked head to toe in dust thick enough that she seemed to be 3 or 4 shades paler, which was unnerving, to say the least.

"Sorry, I got two buildings dropped on me today," Domina said, far too cheery for the situation.

"Nice to see you managed to keep yourself in one piece despite that." Jet spoke up with a disapproving frown. "You're difficult enough to understand when your speaking proper gem."

"O veni in Jet," Domina said with a smirk. "Sic perfectly comprehensible like this." Yellow Diamond swore for a moment she saw Jet smile before the taciturn pearl turned back to her screen. Pink Pearl didn't look as amused. "So do we have a cause? I thought the continental plates were stable he-" Domina paused mid glance around the room, she didn't land when she saw Blue Diamond, which was a habit Yellow Diamond had long grown used to in the past decade, but she was looking for someone. Finally, she turned to look at the two diamonds.

"Where's Pink?" Domina asked. Yellow blinked, part of her brain, for half a moment wondered why White would ever want Pink involved in this kind of discussion. The rest of her brain, which wasn't stuck in Era 1, was also puzzled. But mostly because since Pink had returned, Domina had spent most of the time completely ignoring the younger diamond, even when she was in the same room as her.

"In her chambers, she's perfectly safe." Blue Diamond provided the answer. Yellow did notice that all the pearls had instantly turned to Pink Pearl, whose face remained unreadable.

"I assumed so," Domina said, she turned and raised an eyebrow at Pink Pearl, an unspoken conversation going on between them in half a second before a communicator was tossed towards Domina with a shrug.

"Domina, she really doesn't need to be here." Yellow Diamond said, there really hadn't been much of a discussion between her and Blue... and she supposed any of the others that should be involved, about what to do with Pink since her return.

"Why not?" Domina asked, she cocked her head to the side and white dust fell from her hair. "If this had happened eleven years ago you would have dragged me back here from the Delta Quadrant to be involved."

"She's not-" Blue began but she was cut off by the chime of the communicator and Pink picking up, head a tad too close to the screen.

"Domina! Hey!"

"Pink, where are you?" Domina asked. And Yellow actually had to agree with that question. The area behind Pink Diamond was too dark to be her room.

"Uh... in my room?" Pink said, tilting her head, she stepped forward and the area around her lit up, and that looked a little more like her room. "Blue said I should stay here."

"Well I'm saying get over here," Domina said with a disapproving glance at Blue Diamond. Yellow Diamond was suddenly regretting pulling everyone together. "The warp pad to the citadel works, hurry up." Pink's eyes went wide and behind the screen, Yellow thought she saw Pink Pearl smile slightly.

"Yeah!" She shrieked, causing Yellow and Blue both to wince. Then Pink blushed and more professionally said: "I mean, yes. Of course, I'll be right there."


	12. Chapter 12

**You guys are like on top of these subplots. So congrats. This chapter was fun to write, and I say that about a lot of them but this one definitely has a few lines that I've been thinking on for a while. So I hope you enjoy. See you guys Friday!**

In the time it took Pink to skid into the citadels council chamber, reports had begun to come in from across Homeworld with statistics about the damage from the quake. And Domina had to admit, that even after seeing the worst of the damage, she couldn't have expected something like this.

Homeworld was old, unreasonably old, and while kindergartening had stopped a long time ago the planet the process had left scars on the world, as it did any other planet the empire colonized.

"It's being held to the mantle by support columns," Domina said, she was still midair, something that passed for adrenaline keeping her aloft despite her normal reservation about flying around Blue Diamond. "Why..."

"The crust isn't completely gone but it is greatly weakened." Yellow Diamond said. "The supports are designed to simply strengthen the connection, not replace it."

"Yes and that seems to have worked perfectly." Jet said dryly. Domina nodded and gestured to Jet across the room. Pink, sitting between Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond frowned.

"When did that happen?" She asked leaning forward in her hastily constructed seat to better see the hologram in the center.

"Sometime after the last of the Rose Quartzes emerged." Blue Pearl said. Domina paused mid-air. That she did not know. Domina wasn't super familiar with the kindergartening practices of Era 1, she knew that they had tended to drain planets completely of life, often rendering them even unfit for gem life. Planets that were deemed useful enough to be used by the empire in a higher capacity were left with enough life to hold together. But to drain a planet completely was unheard of in era 2. Usually, planets were reseeded to produce ship components which was a much less material heavy process.

From the expression on her face, Pink hadn't known that either.

"Are you accusing her of something?" Blue Diamond hissed, her voice, and the room growing cold. Domina landed quickly and her arm stopped throbbing.

"Blue-" Yellow Diamond began, looking nervously at Blue Pearl who had gone completely still.

"And why shouldn't we?" Jet spoke up. Domina saw Pink's wide eyes suddenly go from surprised to worried.

"I didn't know!" She blurted. "White never said she was going to use Homeworld for them!"

"Pink you don't have to explain anything to these-" Blue began.

"To these what?" Jet snapped. "Please go on, I'd love to see hear how The other two excuse you this time."

"Jet. Enough." Pink Pearl said speaking for the first time since Pink Diamond had entered the room. Jet turned to fire back with some comment before Yellow Pearl spoke up.

"None of that is important right now." She was standing awfully close to Blue Pearl now and Domina assumed they were holding hands now. A fair reaction. "How do we fix this?"

"Well," Domina said, turning away from the 3d map of Homeworld's support system to the statistics for the planet's population. "If we start as soon as possible we can begin relocating." In her peripheral vision, she saw eyebrows raise. "Typically I would suggest just relocating to a different planet but Homeworlds existing infrastructure definitely won't allow for a one to one transfer. There is a small system, a little out of the way but-"

"You can't be serious." Yellow Diamond jolted Domina out of her planning in trance.

"Hmm?" Domina turned and blinked to see not only all three of the diamonds but also all four pearls looking at her in varying stages of surprise and horror.

"Domina, we can't just leave." Yellow continued.

"Why not?" Domina asked with a frown. "We've abandoned colony planets before, what's the difference?"

"The difference is its Homeworld!"

"It's a planet!" Domina shook her head. "Why get sentimental? There are billions out that, we'll just find a different one and be more careful next time."

"I can't believe this." Blue Diamond said getting to her feet. "For one who insists on keeping every grossly defective gem you think its a reasonable idea to throw away an entire planet.

"The planet is dead, actually I think zombified would be a better term here." Domina blinked in disbelief, half smiling at the incredulity of it all. She caught pearls small frown out of the corner of her eye and sighed. "It's just a husk, we've been nursing it along for too long."

"That..." Blue Pearl stepped forward holding her hands up. "Maybe a tad extreme. However, this information should be disseminated as carefully as possible. If people want to relocate let them had the choice." She pulled up her own screen, a list of tasks already on it. Domina sighed and

"Yellow Diamond, will you and Blue Diamond focus on ensuring all major damages are restored, and any gems in need of repair are identified quickly." Blue Pearl didn't look at Blue Diamond, but both diamonds nodded, though, one more reluctant than the other.

"Pink, Please get in contact with the Agates at the zoo and determine if any other Rose Quartzes possess the ability to heal gems." Blue continued, then turned to look at Yellow Pearl. "Information, a transmission should do it." Then Blue Pearl looked at Domina, then at Pink Pearl, then at Pink Diamond. "Pink Diamond, if you will assist Yellow Pearl."

"What?" Pink Diamond asked, "Really?" Domina smirked.

"Yes, really." Blue Pearl said with a barely concealed smile. Domina did catch the mildly irritated looks from Yellow and Blue Diamond. But that was overshadowed by the barely concealed panic from Yellow Pearl.

"I would like to see the damage to the support structure myself, Jet if you will accompany me?" Blue Pearl asked. "And domina?"

"Of course," Domina said as Jet nodded.

"Good." Blue Pearl said nodding to the assembled leaders of Homeworld before they parted ways.

"So what did you think they were for? Since you've apparently been down here before?" Blue Pearl heard Jet ask as the continued the journey deep into the depths of Homeworld, following the bismuth who was the crew chief of this district.

"Honestly?" Domina asked. "Building supports or something, this really isn't my area of expertise." It was amusing, from Blue Pearl's perspective that after long enough together Jet slowly grow less antagonistic around Domina. Though it was always questionable about how long that would last.

"It's not for most gems." The bismuth called back over her shoulder, the ends of her mohawk just barely scraped the top of the ceiling that had lowered considerably since they had begun their descent. "Usually you know, the diamonds try to keep this under wraps."

"I'm not surprised," Domina muttered. Something caught Blue Pearl's eye and she stopped. Dead in her tracks. JEt and Domina clumsily stopped behind her, their protests lessoning when they noticed it too. The bismuth continued a few more feet before she realized she wasn't being followed anymore and backed up.

"Oh yeah, saw that when I first came down here," She said, shapeshifting an elongated hand and gently tracing the place where the crystalline metal had been torn apart, intentionally, and then seemed to have collapsed on itself.

"And you didn't tell anyone?" Blue Pearl asked, tracing the path of the support with her eye as far as she could.

"Well," The bismuth said dryly. "If you haven't noticed we've been a bit busy. Anyway, that doesn't do a lot on its own, supports maybe half a block, the real issue is further down."

"Are there more spots like this?" Domina asked. The bismuth shrugged.

"Probably we haven't gotten the chance, not enough hands to get this all mapped out."

"How many more hands do you need? If there are more spots more quakes could be coming and-"

"Oh, we've got more than just that to worry about." The bismuth said, holding two hands up to stop Domina. "Don't get your facets in a twist, follow me."

Blue Pearl kept her eyes peeled as they continued moving. There weren't any more places that looked intentional but there were more supports that had been twisted or crushed. And as they got deeper, and the air got warmer the supports got bigger, and the damage less noticeable.

"Doesn't look so bad here..." Jet said hesitantly as they stopped before a giant column. They could just barely fit without bending at the waist, the bismuth wasn't so lucky.

"You'd think, but I could stand straight up here yesterday." The bismuth said. "Something, or someone, caused a chain reaction that has severely weakened this plate. Maybe on purpose, Maybe by accident."

"The White and Blue districts are above us aren't they?" Domina said looking at the slight wrinkle in the pillar in front of them.

"Yup, we're right underneath the cellblock."

"Well frack." Jet muttered. And Blue Pearl, thinking back to the pictures she had seen of the sabotaged kindergarten, had to agree with her.


	13. Chapter 13

**Ok really sorry on multiple accounts. I bought a house Friday and plan on moving in this friday so this week has been, and will continue to be a whirlwind of activity. That in mind... this will probably be the only chapter you guys get this week. Regular updates will be returning! as soon as everything calms down. Now as for the chapter it was a little hard to get started and continue but it does finally introduce yet another thing that I've been waiting to introduce eagerly. I hope you all enjoy.**

**see you guys next week**

There was something really weird about following a Pearl into her office. Like, Pink Diamond had followed Yellow's Pearl around plenty of times. Yellow Diamond was always busy and usually would rather send her pearl to deliver messages or summons or whatever than actually come talk to her. But this was definitely different.

"It shouldn't take too long to distill the information." Yellow's Pearl slid into her chair with ease, pulling up the file. Pink Diamond was a little tall to be in here, like a quartz in a pearl nursery, but she still managed to glance around without looking too awkward. The room was tastefully arranged with various knick-knacks, mostly schematics, and prototypes for technology that had been old before Pink Diamond went to earth. There were also screens with pictures that transitioned across them. Some showed Earth, the Crystal Gems, Steven, a strange orange...plant? Others were of Homeworld, of it's galaxy, of Domina and Yellow Diamond. As she watched there was definitely a primary subject, either at the forefront or lurking in the background. Blue's Pearl was definitely a favorite.

"Pink Diamond!" Yellow's Pearl said a little louder for probably the third or fourth time.

"Oh sorry," Pink Diamond shook her head and turned back to the pearl who sighed.

"I asked if there was anything you wanted to add." Yellow's Pearl asked. Pink Diamond looked over the screen and shrugged.

"No I don't think so, What part do you want me to say?" She asked, there was also something really weird about deferring to a pearl and Yellow's Pearl must have thought the same thing.

"This part," Yellow's Pearl pointed to the part of the announcement towards the end, where it asked everyone to please remain calm and alert for any instructions going forward. "They'll take information from me but they're more likely to listen to an order from you."

"I really don't want to give any orders," Pink Diamond said uncomfortably, she wasn't exactly the most intimidating of diamonds, and this whole situation was basically her fault."

"Well, it's not much of one." Yellow's Pearl said with pursed lips as she stood and started going through her drawers, pulling out a video recorder and lights, angling them with a frown that was very familiar.

"...White really didn't tell me that she was going to use Homeworld for the rose quartzes." Pink said after a long awkward moment of watching Yellow's Pearl set things up in silence. "I mean, she said that a gem that powerful would have to come from the heart of a planet, to use the highest concentration of life but I didn't..."

"I didn't even know about it until after you were shattered." Yellow's Pearl paused and hesitated. "White Diamond was... overwrought after your demise and Yellow Diamond wasn't much better, a lot of things came out then." The last part was said in a rush.

"That's hard to imagine." Pink said, granted she had seen the effect her shattering had had on everyone now but, it was one thing to see Yellow Diamond get choked up while she hugged her, and it was another to imagine White Diamond... cracking under pressure."

"Trust me, it was very unsettling to witness." Yellow's Pearl said with something close to a shudder. "Anyway, ready? Let's get this over with."

* * *

"We need to talk." Domina didn't corner Blue Diamond in her chambers like she normally did but this time had found her walking through the ruins of what had been the lower blue district. An aquamarine had been speaking with her regarding new sculptures to be put in where the old had fallen. Blue Diamond pursed her lips and turned to see Domina hovering at roughly eye level, not far from the aquamarine. Said aquamarine thoughtfully went elsewhere.

"Talk about what?" Blue Diamond asked, keeping her voice low. "The fact that you just want to abandon our planet, our home as if it were a quarry?" for probably the millionth time since Domina had said it Blue Diamond felt rage boil up within her at the mere idea... Did this piece of coal not understand how much work they had all put into building this planet up to thrive?!

Domina went pale and wavered in the air for a moment, then immediately landed. She clutched one arm and stared in front of her, barely trembling, before looking back up at Blue Diamond.

"Could... could you come down here?" Domina asked, her voice, though shaky, projected up. "It's not about that, it's about Pink." Blue Diamond hesitated then nodded and in a flash of light, lowered herself closer to the ground. Domina relaxed.

"What about Pink? What happened?" Horrible scenarios were already going through her head, no matter how illogical any of them were

"Nothing, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. Do you honestly think she shouldn't be involved in any of this?" Domina looked up at her with an expression that was perplexed more than anything. Blue Diamond relaxed.

"Domina, she's young. Putting too much on her the last time ended in her..." Blue Diamond shook her head. "We can't make that mistake again."

"She's older than me if you count the time she spent in pieces," Domina said flippantly. "And I had my first colony at a far younger age than her."

"That's different."

"How?" Domina asked, her voice growing in irritation. "You and Yellow both seem to be insistent that Pink's situation is so much different than mine when she was perfectly capable of working with Rose Quartz to force us to surrender!" Blue Diamond flinched, that was a fact that both herself and Yellow had been tactfully ignoring until they knew even how to handle the fact that a diamond had essentially committed treason.

"Domina it was her first colony, She didn't know what she was doing and couldn't keep control, then she wanted to absolve herself of responsibility of the whole thing!"

"So what? She obviously wants to be involved now, I'm not saying we just give her another colony but we can always use another gem to help deal with everything. She has a court she should have the responsibilities to go with it!" Domina paused. "Wait, who's been processing her court's requests?" Blue Diamond felt her face flush with embarrassment.

"Most of her court had been transferred to me in the first place and so..." She said, as much as she hated to admit it Domina probably was right on that account. Domina shook her head.

"At least it's not Yellow." She muttered. Blue Diamond snorted.

"Of Course not, Yellow does not need anymore work."

"So I've told her, not that that's stopped her from trying to take on 'just this one project'" Domina said, pitching her voice down into a relatively good approximation of Yellow's voice. Blue couldn't help her smile. Domina smiled back and for just a brief moment they were completely at ease in each others presence.

"Fine." Blue Diamond said, "But I... we can't lose her again." Domina nodded and behind her Blue Diamond saw a flicker of movement.

"I understand, and I'll promise you we can keep her sa-"

"STEVEN BOMB!" Steven floated gently from the height he had jumped from and was nearly thrown back into the air when Domina startled and summoned a gust of wind.

"Gah!" Domina shrieked before bursting into laughter. "What are you doing here?"

"Pink Pearl asked me to come help heal some gems!" Steven said leaning down to hug Domina with a grin. "Hey Blue Diamond." Blue Diamond sighed and nodded at both Steven and Domina, before retreating, waiting until she was far enough from the both of them to return to her proper height.

As she stepped into her chambers, with the intent of transferring Pinks requests to her, her screen indicated an incoming message. One from outside the empire. Blue Diamond quickly smoothed her hair, straightened her robes before flipping her hood over her head and taking a seat.

On the other side of the transmission was a humanoid creature in the vauguest of terms. It's mouth visibly full of sharp teeth, it's eyes perched upon stalks that pivoted away from other screens to focus on her. Its skin was a pale blue, with splotches of red and yellow. The Ukanth's appearances were always disquieting to Blue Diamond, and unfortunately, they were her main point of contact to the rest of the intergalactic alliance.

"Blue Diamond, you have reformed." The Ukanth said, its eyes moved closer to the screen in an attempt to get a better look. Blue Diamond did her best not to flinch.

"I have, so what do I owe the pleasure of your call... U-polin?" Blue Diamond asked, recalling the name of her latest 'handler'.

"We simply wished to inform you that the council has noticed a resurgence of Gem activity in the Crystal system and they have asked me to remind you of the boundaries that White Diamond agreed to keep to. "

"No further expansion is being done, we are simply revisiting an old colony."

"Ah, good, good." U-polin looked similar to its predecessor but lacked the desire to ask follow up questions. "I am also supposed to ask if yourself and White Diamond will be joining us as non-participants to the next council meeting."

"We will not. A representative will be sent, however." Blue Diamond said. There was a Sodalite that normally handled those meetings, She should suffice. Blue Diamond herself certainly had no interest in going and White Diamond... didn't have the option of attending.

"Yes, yes of course." U-polin waved a three-fingered clawed hand and one eye nodded. "I imagine you have much to do after a disaster of that magnitude on your home planet." Blue Diamond froze and did her best not to let the surprise show on her face.

"I do." She finally decided was the right thing to say, despite the fact that she wanted to demand answers from the smug organic on the other end of the transmission. "And if your done wasting my time, I should get back to work."

"Of course, may the stars guide you truly," U-Polin said, both eyes dipping in a slight bow. Blue Diamond pursed her lips and ended the transmission.

In a way, her worst fears were coming true. If civilizations outside of the empire knew what had _just _happened on Homeworld then what else did they know? Had the secret Blue Diamond had been keeping close to her gem, that White Diamond as they knew her was no longer existent, been leaked to the rest of the universe? Because as much as Blue resented White, the power she commanded was an adequate threat when they needed it.

This much was true. Blue Diamond needed to find out where the intergalactic alliance's spy was on Homeworld, quickly, before things got more out of hand than they already were.

**so yeah. Aliens. who would have thought?**


	14. Chapter 14

**I'm back! I'm all moved in and well rested and ready to get back into this. Thank you so much for being patient, and for all your wonderful comments. and thank you to squish for betaing this chapter. hope you enjoy this chapter and I'll see you friday!**

Steven didn't usually spend a whole lot of time on Homeworld. Typically, it was just a stop on whatever adventure Domina had decided to drag him and (usually) Connie on. But he had always thought it was cool. Especially when he started seeing it in the context of a place that some of his friends lived, rather than a place where he was put on trial (by some of those same friends) for his mother's war crimes.

So it did hurt a little to see it in worse shape than it had been during Blue's Rebellion.

After arriving on Homeworld in the spaceship Domina had 'accidentally' left on Earth that one time, Pink Pearl showed him where they had begun to recover gems that were cracked... Or worse. He could feel his enthusiasm begin to wane the longer he sat there, licking gems, or spritzing them with the emergency fountain water he carried in the pickles of his backpack.

Eventually, he had to take a break, the bottle was empty and his mouth was dry. He helped the Ruby Squad bubble the remainders while he took a nap and checked his messages. Pearl had sent him like five thousand texts to make sure he was ok. He responded to the chain with a message saying that he had gotten to Homeworld safely and everything was ok and that he missed them and would see them soon. And then he added several emojis, to make sure they knew it was him.

When he woke up and drank some water he finished up the rest of the gems in the room before going to see if he could find Domina, and hopefully a bathroom.

"I mean, I think we could get you another couch," Steven said as they walked to the Styx. Domina shrugged, she was glancing around at the street thoughtfully.

"It was a good couch, and the trip to that store was... nice." She said distractedly.

"What are you looking for?" He asked, gently stopping her from walking into a building with a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not entirely sure... evidence that a plate support has crumbled?" Domina frowned, then muttered. "As if that kind of thing would be visible on the surface."

"...What's a plate support?" Steven asked, and then Domina gave him a smile that told him that he was going to regret asking.

And he did regret asking. Being friends with Domina was a lot like being friends with Peridot, except your hairdo or umbrellas or anything light enough to be carried away by a gust of wind was a lot more likely to disappear.

"And knowing all that, they don't even want to leave!" Domina said pacing down the narrow hallway of The Styx. Steven, sitting backward in the pilot's seat, pulled a few leaves out of the front of his hair.

"Well, yeah it's their home, I mean how would you feel if you had to leave..." Steven trailed off, Domina was giving him a withering look. "Well just because you could handle it doesn't mean that they can." He said with a shrug. Domina sighed and collapsed onto a bed.

"I know, I know." She muttered. "It doesn't make it any less frustrating. And that White Diamond decided that it was a good idea to drain the planet in the first place..." Steven uncomfortably put a hand over his gem. Sometimes it felt like even when it wasn't his mom's fault, the troubles that he and everyone around him faced were still his mom's fault.

"Yeah... How's Pink Diamond?" He asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"Escaping orbit over the idea that she's able to _do_ something," Domina said dryly. "She helped Yellow Pearl put out a PSA and I think..." Domina sighed. "I think it might be a good idea if she went to see the test kindergarten, White Diamond's journals said something about her having some kind of organic powers and she definitely has an... interest in organic life."

"I guess if that's what we want to call it," Steven said with a nervous chuckle. Domina shrugged, and the door to the Styx opened.

"Ah, this is where you two have been hiding." Yellow Diamond said with a frown, just barely poking her head in.

"Sorry!" Steven said, "I needed to do some human things." He checked his phone and actually saw that there weren't any messages from the Ruby Squad.

"I'm actually here for Domina, We're meeting with Mossy in a few minutes if you would like to join us," Yellow said. "To discuss the... situation." Domina sighed and looked at Steven.

"Do you mind wandering Homeworld for a bit? Or you can stay here."

"Yeah I'll be fine, I might take another nap," Steven said with a yawn, the cot someone had helpfully set up for him was... well it had been a nice gesture but the bed was literally as hard as a rock.

"Nap away," Domina said following her fellow Diamond off the ship.

Steven took his nap and actually felt pretty relaxed and well rested when he woke up to his phone buzzing. He rolled to one side and saw that it was the Ruby Squad, with more gems for him to try to heal. There was also a text from Connie, one with several heart emojis, which made him smile. When he rolled over to get out of bed, he found himself face to face with Pink Diamond.

"Gah!" Steven cried jolting upright, smacking his head on the top of the bed

"Sorry! Sorry!" Pink Diamond said scrambling back and falling over onto the opposite bed.

"Why were you watching me sleep?" Steven asked, rubbing his forehead, though really, he should be used to that by now. Pearl had mostly stopped, but that didn't stop Lion.

"I just came in and you were and I've never really seen Domina sleep, why do you and she doesn't?" Pink Diamond asked looking a little less embarrassed than she probably should. Steven shrugged and tugged another leaf out of his hair.

"I don't know, I'm organic and Domina's not, that's probably part of it," Steven muttered. Half gem stuff was always so weird. He flicked the leaf out of his hair, they were probably part of one of Domina's many collections, and while normally he would feel bad about it, she was the one to mess it up first.

Pink Diamond caught the leaf and inspected it, smiling curiously, a smile which quickly faded as the leaf began to unshrivel, turning a bright healthy turquoise.

"Woah... that's cool," Steven said, finally breaking the uneasy tension between them. Pink Diamond forced a smile and flicked the leaf away, letting it fall to the ground to where it stayed as fresh as if it had just fallen from a tree.

"I guess..." She said with a shrug. "It's just an annoying habit of mine."

White Diamond had approached Yellow after the rose quartzes had already emerged. After the first time a quake upset Homeworld. Of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as the most recent one, but still enough to cause alarm. She had told Yellow Diamond of what had happened, had returned her protests and anger with a firm stare, and then told her to fix it.

"Temporarily, until we come up with a better solution." White Diamond had said before striding out the door without even sparing her a look. The air suddenly moving again after she had passed.

And of course then, with Pink having only been three thousand years out of the ground, Yellow did it without any complaint. She was still so worried about how she had let down White, and with her added tantrum on top of that she wanted to get back into the matriarchs good graces as quickly as possible.

The supports were supposed to be temporary, but like so many things, they became permanent.

And now here they were, two eras and thousands of years later, trying to come up with a better solution.

"Well, a one to one relocation won't be possible." Moss Agate said via holoscreen. She stared at a stream of data just off screen and frowned contemplatively. Yellow Diamond sighed and she could see Domina trying to suppress a smile as she hovered next to Yellow. "However, there is a five-planet system on the edge of the inner planets-"

"They already refused that plan, Moss Agate. After I suggested it." Domina said, her face was emotionless again and Yellow Diamond saw the unease from Jet on the other side of her. She had to agree with it, thankfully the two were several quadrants apart. Moss Agate paused and after a moment sighed.

"So what exactly do you want to do then?" She asked.

"To do whatever is necessary to preserve the planet's structural integrity." Yellow Diamond said even though she knew...

"We're a little past that point, " Domina said.

"Well, we wouldn't be if we didn't have to worry about saboteurs." Jet snapped. "They could be repaired and we could move on."

"Yes, but the planet would still be held together by a network of braces. That's still a problem. " Domina said, sounding agitated. Yellow Diamond sighed.

"It was never intended to be permanent. White always thought we would find a solution, we just got... sidetracked."

"A civil war essentially sanctioned by a diamond would do that." Moss Agate muttered. Yellow Diamond frowned, that wasn't the official story about Earth's rebellion but apparently, Moss Agate had found out the truth, as she often did.

That did stump them into silence for a moment though until Jet spoke up.

"Maybe I'm just stating the obvious here but why don't we simply just re-terraform Homeworld like we did on 23-T72?"

"Well because..." Domina said, then thoughtfully floated to a nearby pillar.

"Because..." Yellow Diamond frowned and pulled open a file with the stats from 23-T72 the terraforming had boosted the planet's integrity.

Though 23-T72 had still had at least a spark of life left within it, enough to keep it together.

"This is a far greater scale than 23-T72." Moss Agate said as she stroked her chin.

"Well yes, Homeworld is twice 23-T72's size." Jet said. Domina had risen again leaning to look over Yellow Diamond's shoulder.

"And older and more drained," Domina said. "If we had the time..."

"If we had the resources..." Moss Agate mused.

"But we don't." Yellow Diamond said firmly. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "We don't have the time, or the resources or the power to even begin to think about terraforming the planet. We need to explore other options. Send out a request, we need as many ideas as possible."


	15. Chapter 15

**I am sorry about how late this chapter is. My younger brother graduated this weekend and works been kind of crazy but I have a chapter here for you now and I will (if all things go well) have one for you tomorrow. We're getting to probably one of my favorite ideas for this fic and I'm so excited to see what you guys think.**

**Any way, enjoy! see you tomorrow (hopefully)**

"You might as well go," Pink Pearl said, though it was really all a formality at this point. They were in one of the newly repaired hangars with The Styx. Steven was leaning in the doorway, texting, no doubt letting his family back on Earth that he would be a few more days. The rescue efforts had finally come to a halt and all work was now being focused on repairing the damage the quake had done to Homeworld. Yellow Diamond had put out the call for solutions to their latest crisis. Blue was strangely preoccupied and so was Jet for that matter. Pink herself had to get back to managing projects that had fallen to the wayside while she had been gone. It was for the best if Domina was busy, and not just waiting.

"I don't even have my screen." Domina sighed, running a hand through her hair. "It's not fair to just leave you with all my work."

"Oh, I didn't say I was going to do any of it." Pink Pearl said with a smile. Domina laughed.

"That's fair." She sighed and turned to Steven. "Are you interested in a trip out to the far edge of gem known space?"

"What?" Came another voice from behind Pink Pearl. She didn't have to turn to know who it was.

In the weeks since Pink Diamond had returned to Homeworld Pink Pearl had largely dealt with her complicated feelings about the diamond by avoiding her at every opportunity, something that was pretty easy to do now that she wasn't tied to a diamond's side. But Pink Diamond had taken an interest in Domina, and Domina seemed determined to involve her in the ruling of the empire, something that Pink Pearl was reluctant to approve of.

Domina looked at her warily, then glanced at Pink Diamond and gave her an awkward smile.

"We're going out to meet with a... patrol ship?" Steven asked looking at Domina for confirmation.

"Exploratory Survey team," Domina corrected.

"Yeah, that," Steven said gesturing to Domina. "Anyway, one of the crew has a messed up memory and so Domina's going to fix it." The crew in questions was Apatite 3P7Y 1KL who had actually been a member of their section of the colonization fleet until about a year after Domina and herself left for Homeworld.

"...Like White?" Pink Diamond asked. Pink Pearl knew that she had meant it completely innocently but Domina bristled.

"Absolutely not! I would never-!"

"Nop she's trying to fix what her mom did!" Steven said, stepping in quickly. He had gotten far too good at that over the last few years. "Do you want to come with?" at that Pink Pearl finally turned around to look at he- at her form- at the gem she had been created for. Pink Diamond glanced down at her and gave her an awkward smile, then looked back at Domina who, when Pink Pearl had turned, had been looking at Steven like he had just suggested that Blue Diamond join them.

"If uh... If Domina's ok with it?" Pink Diamond asked hopefully, staring at Domina with wide eyes.

"...Pearl did you want to-"

"I have work to do here Domina." Pink Pearl said quickly. She had thought about coming along if only to see 1KL's reaction to seeing Domina fully grown. But now, she'd pass. It was almost 2 days round trip at the Styx's top speed to the farthest outpost and she would rather not spend all that time in close proximity of Pink Diamond.

"..Alright then." Domina sounded disappointed. "Sure why not?" Pink Diamond cheered and ran practically bounced on board The Styx, chattering to Steven. Pink Pearl sighed and shook her head at Domina.

"You two are too much alike I think." Pink Pearl said, finally able to articulate at least one part of what she had realized about Pink Diamond.

"I don't know about that." Domina frowned but she stepped forward and hugged her. "Does she make you uncomfortable to be around? I mean I know you were fine with me trying to include her, but..." Pink pearl sighed and extradited her arms from Dominas so she could hug back.

"I legitimately do have other things to do, do not worry about me, Domina,"

Domina snorted and finally let go. "I'll get right on that, as soon as you start not worrying about me."

* * *

There was something about being behind the controls of the Styx again. Domina had essentially built the ship in her 30's and then immediately she and Pearl had set off on what was technically an unauthorized trip into the unknown space that surrounded the empire's sphere of influence. It had been therapeutic, and something she really needed in the wake of her father's death.

Domina felt that same relief as the Styx finally left the outer quadrants and the traffic began to disperse. She looked to her right on instinct to shoot Pearl a smile before she pushed the ship into its top speed but instead it was just Pink Diamond, looking excitedly around as far as the view screen would let her.

"I've never been out this far!" Pink Diamond said. Domina snorted, despite her mild irritation.

"Oh yeah, I guess gems hadn't really reached this far last time you saw it," Steven said. Pink shook her head and turned to look at Domina.

"How much farther do we have to go?"

"Oh, we've just started," Domina said double checking the gravity engine settings before activating it and throwing the ship into high speed. Steven yelped as he was thrown back farther into his seat on one of the beds. The Styx shook violently for a few moments, then evened out.

"Is uh... Is this thing safe?" Pink Diamond asked. Domina frowned.

"It's safe enough to bring Steven along in." She activated the autopilot controls and turned in her seat. "Anyway, the gravity engines on, you are now free to move about the cabin." Steven gave her a look that confirmed Domina's suspicions that that was, in fact, some kind of Earth reference.

"Cool," Steven said digging into his food backpack as he got up.

"So how long do we have?" Pink said with the air of someone who was rephrasing a question so that it would get answered.

"About 10 hours until we dock at the resupply station then we'll pick up a different ship and rendezvous with the Survey ship," Domina said. Pink Diamond let out a little groan and Domina resisted the urge to laugh.

"I brought music by the way," Steven said pulling out a contraption that looked like a 5XG invention and plugged it into the audio emitter for the ship.

"Excellent, any...Imagine Dragons?" Domina asked trying to think of a suitable misnomer.

"Domina... It's Contemplating Griffins." Steven sighed. "How do you even know what a dragon is?!"

"Steven I've known about dragons for practically my entire life." Domina corrected leaning back into her chair, planning on taking a nap for the duration of the trip.

"Yeah, and you've known about Contemplating Griffins for the last like eleven years," Steven grumbled fiddling with his phone. "Actually Sadie Killer and the Suspects have a new album coming out soon so I brought that along. You'll probably like 'Puppet' it's a weird one." Domina caught a glance at Pink Diamond, who was padding around the ship, glancing in boxes as much as she could without actually touching anything. Mostly ignoring them.

"I do like weird."

* * *

There was only a handful of security drones that close to the mantel of Homeworld. And of course, the saboteurs had essentially avoided all of them.

Jet grumbled from her seat in the HGC workroom and slowed down the footage again, it was already at less than a frame per second but she was trying to focus in on a single moment where something fell from the support that had been cut. It wasn't a piece of debris or a gem. She jotted down the coordinates and elected to send a patrol to check the area.

The door opened and Blue walked in with Pink close behind.

"The Warp network is all back up and we are reconnected to the galaxy warp," Blue said sliding into her chair. "Any updates?" Jet shook her head.

"Nothing conclusive." She muttered, an alert appeared on her screen, an outgoing message from Blue Diamond to Spinel 5F7U 8PM. A Counterintelligence officer from what Jet remembered. Jet 1RN, the gem she had been made for, had been an archivist and Jet herself was loosely familiar with the universe that certain members in Blue Diamonds court dealt with. The fact that the Diamond was speaking with someone that dealt with that sphere, so soon after a disaster was very concerning.

Jet went to access the calls audio, only to be interrupted by another notification appearing on her screen, along with the sound of notifications appearing on the screen of the other two in the room.

_Jet Facet 1N9P Cut 1RN_

She almost laughed, and probably would have if it wasn't for the fact that this was so irritating and disconcerting. Why would she need a reminder of shattering _that_ gem? The one she didn't regret.

"What in the stars.." Pink suddenly said from across the table. Jet looked up confused until she realized that Domina still had her account forwarded to Pink's. Then she glanced at Blue who had gotten a very tense look on her face.

"You're... you're getting them too?" Jet asked. She really couldn't believe that that idea hadn't crossed her mind that Blue Pearl would get these mysterious messages as well as Blue Diamond. Because well, it was Blue, She was determined and got things done obviously but that anyone would see her as a threat, or someone to be threatened was insane.

"Too?" Pink asked leaning forward. "What do you mean too, this has happened before?" Jet frowned.

"It... yes, I'm getting them too," Blue said with a sigh, then turned to Pink. "Domina hasn't told you? We've been getting these for the last ten years. Jet's taken an interest in it but nothing ever comes of the messages so we've essentially ignored it."

"You've ignored it." Pink Pearl said, her face deadpan.

"I haven't." Jet muttered, tracing the signal quickly, another dead end.

"So a good majority of the empire's leaders are being threatened and no one's doing anything about it?"

"We've been busy in case you haven't noticed," Blue said dryly.

"Does Yellow know?" Pink asked pointedly.

"...no"

"So you've been ignoring it and keeping it under wraps and who's to say that these aren't the ones behind the damage to the plate supports?"

"It's a theory I'm following." Jet said through gritted teeth. "Except no one has been listening to me this entire time."

"We have but you insist on doing this all your self!" Blue snapped. And she was angry. Despite the fact that her face had been fully visible for a decade she was not any better at concealing her emotions.

"Why would I want to involve the diamonds? Because that's all your leaving me!" She got to her feet.

"Then work with them, stars, Jet you don't have to like them, just be civil!"

"How can you say that?" Jet asked placing both hands on the table to confront Blue. "You avoid Blue Diamond at every chance, you can't even look her in the eye most of the time!"

"That's different!"

"Blue.." Pink cut in uneasily.

"Oh is it?" Jet pushed herself away from the table and headed for the door. "So glad to know you're allowed to be an exception to the rule."

"Jet that's not fair."

"Of course it's not it never is!" Jet shouted her back to the door. "It's not fair that they ran the empire into the ground, that they shattered thousands, that they treated us like dust and now we're just supposed to act like nothing ever happened!"

"Jet calm do-" Blue Pearl started.

"I am tired of being calm!" Jet interrupted.

"I can certainly understand that." Yellow Diamond's voice said from behind her. Jet paused and turned to face the Diamond who was staring at the room, and more specifically her.

"Don't you ever fracking knock?" Jet sighed.

**cutting in here at the end to point out a few things, so first, the Sadie Killer and the Suspects song that Steven references is an actual fansong that me and my sister made one week and I got some fanart from Octoberheart and it's Domina in a suit and it's delightful, you can find both of them on my tumblr which is Domina-alba . tumblr. com so please check it out!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Ok, seeing as how it's a few minutes past midnight, technically it's tuesday, but the chapter is done nonetheless**

**see you Friday**

**enjoy!**

The first time Pink had been this far away from homeworld she had been with White, because well, this was the kind of thing that White did. It had been a long trip, especially since the idea of going beyond the speed of light was still out their reach. They had landed on a little planet in what was now the delta quadrant and White had been going on about soil composition and the types of gems that would most likely form and Pink had really been trying to pay attention but there was also still plants on the planet at the time, which wasn't as good as animals but much easier to sneak back home. White had gotten caught up in one of her tangents and didn't notice when Pink stopped as she walked on.

There had been a particularly large plant, kind of like one of Earth's trees but with a spongy hook like branches that excreted blue pollen when the wind blew. While White was around they didn't do anything of course but the moment she moved away, the air filled with a fine blue mist.

The "tree's" towered to a height well above even White but the seedlings were small enough that Pink didn't even notice them until she tripped and found one inches from her face. It was white instead of the grey of the full-grown ones and had a small blue cap on top. She would have shrieked with delight if it wasn't for the fact that she was trying to keep White from realizing that she wasn't following her anymore.

She dug out her screen and started trying to draw both versions, noticing the structures on the young one that hadn't quite formed yet. It was beautiful to her, something so complex that had just... grown from nothing! Finally, drawing finished, and still excited beyond words Pink reached a hand forward to touch the smooth textured plant. At that moment she only wished she could be around to see the plant grow to maturity. And before her eyes, the plant began to grow, rapidly, it's trunk darkened and the blue cap withered and fell off as the whole thing began to rise.

Pink scrambled back in amazement, glancing just briefly at the other seedlings around her to ensure that, yes, they had not had a growth spurt like this one. Her plant grew and grew until it was a little shorter than the closest full grown tree. The hooked branches emerged and a soft, pale blue mist began to emerge for just a few moments, until suddenly it stopped, along with all the other trees. And the wind.

"What did you just do?" White asked. She didn't sound angry but White didn't ever sound like anything. She just spoke.

"Nothing! I just touched it!"

"Do it again," White said crouching down to just above her level. So Pink did, and the same thing happened, she grinned then looked up at White and saw the emotion on White's face for the first time ever.

It was horror, utter and pure horror.

"Pink you ok?" Steven asked, breaking her out of her reminiscing. He was sitting on the bed behind the main controls and had been looking through some kind of physical text with brightly colored pictures along the outside.

"I'm fine," Pink said with a shrug. She had already explored all of the Styx and Domina had just now woken up from a nap, with a confused and disturbed look on her face.

"We'll be docking in a few minutes." She muttered. Pink Diamond did know that Domina wasn't exactly thrilled to have her along. But she hadn't told her no so it wasn't like Pink was just going to pass up an opportunity for a trip away from Homeworld.

"Wow, it looks just like the base that Red and Feldspar used to run!" Steven said leaning forward towards the screen. To Pink, it really looked like they hadn't changed the design of the stations since Era 1.

"It pretty much is," Domina said maneuvering the controls. "They're all made from the same blueprint."

"And Yellow hasn't decided that the blueprint needed changing in five thousand years?" Pink asked. Domina laughed.

"We haven't had a new base made in five thousand years." She said. "They're so big and cost so much in materials that we've been avoiding replacing them since they work. Moss Agates working on it though, with a lot of input from Forest."

"Yeah I'd imagine she has _opinions,_" Steven said.

"Forest is the pearl right?" Pink said, then realized that was so unspecific nowadays it wasn't even funny. "Uh I mean the green one that I guess is Yellow's head of engineering now?"

"Yup!" Steven said, "She's kind of grumpy, but she's nice when you get to know her, like Yellow Diamond." Pink laughed at the idea of Yellow's expression if she heard that she was being compared to a pearl. Domina smiled but she didn't laugh.

"Steven, if you want food the box is under the workbench in the back," Domina said.

"Thanks but no thanks, I brought something better than zoo fruit," Steven said.

"Are you going to share?"

"You don't need to eat anymore."

"Rude."

* * *

Yellow Diamond didn't say anything for a long moment, partially because she didn't know what to say, and because her planned conversation with Blue Pearl about the areas that needed to have priority for reconstructions was probably not going to happen now.

Jet stared at her both in irritation and something that was probably the pearl's version of fear. It took her a moment to realize but they, the rest of the pearls in the room, were waiting for her to make the next move.

"I have been known too in the past. I'll attempt to remember to next time." She said finally, though she was almost positive that Jet was being entirely rhetorical.

"Good." Jet muttered before moving to walk past her, only to be stopped by a group of sodalites carrying... something.

"This is what we found." the lead one said holding the oblong sphere out to Jet.

"What in stars..." Jet murmured.

"What is that?" Pink, Domina's pearl, er, stars this was just getting more and more complicated.

"Not sure." The sodalite said. "It was found under the crust, close to where uh..." She fumbled for a moment, staring at Jet. "where you said it was, it had rolled out of sight, between two plates, we had a shale of time getting it out of there."

Jet nodded, turning back into the room, walking past Yellow Diamond again. "Thank you."

"Of course." The sodalite said, before heading off, after briefly nodding at Yellow Diamond. Yellow Diamond stepped forward closing the door behind her. Jet set the device on the table and inspected it closely.

"It kind of looks like a ship part." Blue Pearl said.

"Not for any ship I've ever seen." Pink Pearl murmured. "Granted I'm not an expert but..."

"I don't think it's for a ship..." Jet turned it carefully but the object remained inert.

"Can I see or would rather I left?" Yellow Diamond asked. Though she would be very hard pressed to leave at this point.

"...you might as well stay." Jet muttered. "It certainly doesn't look... well it doesn't look like anything." Yellow Diamond stepped closer and ran her hand over the surface. It wasn't completely smooth, there were depressions in it, enough for a six-fingered hand to grab a hold of it. Out of curiosity, she shifted a sixth finger to try it and got nothing for her trouble.

"A communication device or... a bomb?" Pink Pearl asked. Yellow Diamond shrugged.

"Maybe we should hand it off to Forrest and see what she says?"

"I'll call her." Jet said stepping out of the room.

"So.. How much of that did you hear?" Blue Pearl asked her lips pursed.

"Enough, I can't say I blame her, or any of you really." Yellow Diamond said taking a deep breath, wishing that would actually do something to calm her down. Because truly, how else was she supposed to feel about someone essentially saying that everything she had done wasn't enough?

Giving up so much and- Yellow Diamond shook her head. It didn't matter, she just had to keep working at it. Thousands of years and millions of mistakes could be undone in just ten years.

* * *

In hindsight asking Pink if she wanted to drive the scout ship out wasn't the worst idea Domina had ever had. But it was up there.

"Ok ok now ease up, ease up!" She said doing her best not to panic.

"That light goes on in the Styx, should it go on here?" Steven asked, not helping the situation in the least bit.

"It'll be fine," Domina muttered. "Ok Pink good, good, but you need to keep the forward axis stable."

"It is stable!"

"Stabler. We're drifting backward." Domina murmured, looking nervously at several indicators that were flashing now.

"Maybe you should just take the controls." Pink Diamond said pulling her hands back from the hard light controls.

"Not mid flight I can't," Domina said gently shoving her hands back forward.

"I can see the ship!" Steven said. Domina nodded gesturing for Pink to keep the ship steady while she leaned over to take the transmitter.

"Exploratory Survey Mission 6AP, this is Scout Ship 8.09 requesting permission to Dock." She said, intentionally avoiding the use of her name. There were a few moments of silence from the other end while Pink continued to struggle with the ship controls.

"My apologies," A rutiles voice came over the receiver. "Ship for mission 6AP. Permission granted, whom should we be expecting?" Domina paused for a moment and thought.

"Is Apatite 1KL onboard?"

"...yes."

"Tell her a pebble decided it would be a good time to drop in," Domina said. In the background, she could hear a faint whoop and smiled. "See you soon."

It wasn't nerve-wracking as she thought it would be to dock the ship. Pink was much better with the ship at slower speeds.

"So do we just... walk in?" Pink asked. Domina nodded.

"What else would we do?"

"I dunno, I don't usually just 'drop in' on gems. Yellow always said not to bother them if they were doing their job."

"Yeah she told me that too and then I decided to ignore it," Domina said. She double checked the docking indicator, mostly for Steven's sake and then opened the door, stepping through.

On the other side was a Rutile, who looked both puzzled and alarmed at the appearance of two diamonds and... well steven. A Citrine who was relatively nonplussed and Apatite 1KL who was positively beaming, the ends of her coat whipping around her ankles by a barely constrained breeze.

"Oh my star's! You've gotten so big!"


	17. Chapter 17

**Oh I have got to get better about scheduling my week. This chapter didn't actually take that long to write all things considered but there were a few things in particular I wanted to get in now before uh... more stuff starts happening. I was reading through Seditionis the other day and it occurs to me there were a lot more slow moments than there have been lately. We're due for a beach episode or something... any way enjoy!**

When any of the other diamonds went places that had less- other gems, they caused a lot of tension. Yellow was intense, Blue was aloof, and White was both. Pink knew gems got a lot more formal around her, that wasn't hard to see. But it was really weird to see Domina... embarrassed.

"And so she looks at Peridot 6HJ, looks at the rock she picked up and then just pops it in her mouth and then _swallows_. And says 'wow, you can really taste the zinc!'" The apatite was midstory and Pink Diamond didn't think she could smile any wider. "-and we all panic and 9ZQ rushes her back to base, and then Pearl finds out, and all of us are panicking, and then Vitus comes out and just laughs at us, and tells us it's normal."

"To be fair," Domina said, still really red in the face. "It was a small rock."

"It may have been a small rock but you were only this tall!" 1KL said gesturing to below her knees. The rutile at this point interrupted.

"Y-Your Brilliance." She said then glanced at Pink. "-s. What exactly has brought you two see us?"

"I have something I need to speak with 1KL about, but it can wait for a moment," Domina said. Her eyes briefly flickered to the apatites stomach where her pale blue gem rested, slightly flatter than normal.

"So what's out here?" Pink Diamond finally asked after half a second of unbearable awkward silence.

"Oh!" The Rutile suddenly jumped to attention and ran to the console. "Well, we've found at least 4 planets that would be potentially productive." Said planets began to appear on screen, each with a little pop out indicating the resources located on each planet and a lot of other information that Pink Diamond honestly wasn't that interested in.

"Only four?" Steven asked. Apparently, no one had really noticed him, which was weird because Steven was at least as tall as Domina and built like a quartz. "Oh, Hi I'm Steven, I'm Domina's friend, sorry, I should have introduced myself." He waved.

"Steven's half gem," Domina explained.

"Wow, that's not something you see every day." 1KL was much more cavalier about this compared to the Citrine and Rutile whose eyes had just been getting bigger and bigger through the whole conversation.

"I mean I do." Steven grinned. Pink Diamond giggled, he looked just like Rose when she was joking. Domina smiled too, though she was focused on the descriptions of the planets.

"What about the others?" Domina asked, "The other planets, that is, what was wrong with them? We're trying some new kindergartening techniques, they might actually be viable."

"The other planets in the area are..." The rutile paused, her face screwing up in indecision.

"They're as weird as a black hole spitting out pearls." The citrine said folding her arms, her accent was as thick as Domina's but was different, her 'r's were rougher and her 't's had more power. Rutile raised a hand to rub at her shoulder gem setting in embarrassment. Domina laughed.

"Gamma Quadrant?" She asked the Citrine nodded simply.

"What makes them weird though?" Steven asked leaning over Domina's shoulder to look at the planets slowly appearing on screen.

"They're already drained." Apatite 1KL said gently pushing Rutile out of the way. More planets began to pop on screen and they... well they did look like they had been kindergartened, they were really more reminiscent of Asteroids than planets at this point. "And some even have structures on them all the way out here."

"...We haven't been out here before right?" Domina said with a frown. Pink Diamond looked closer at pictures of some of the buildings. They were domed, with squared columns, the floors, or at least what she could make out of them, were put together in organic shapes.

"Correct." Rutile said. "In a few hours we'll be orbiting a planet that does seem to have some structures still intact but like the others, there are no life forms."

"The toroidal one I was reading about?" Domina asked.

"Aww, you read my reports?" 1KL said reaching up to ruffle Domina's hair. Domina rolled her eyes.

"Please, you didn't think I was completely ignoring you."

"Well, it's not like you call."

"You can't get signal out here!" Domina protested.

"Hey uh, so what does toroidal mean?" Steven interjected.

"Donut shaped!" Domina said with a grin. Steven's eyes went wide as he processed this information.

"There's donut-shaped planets?" With a few keystrokes, the rutile brought the planet on screen. Pink didn't really know what a donut was but the planet was squashed, with a hole in the center that its moon moved up and down through.

"Woah..." She gasped.

"Do you want to go down and check it out when we fall into orbit?" Apatite 1KL asked. There was a long enough pause that Pink looked over at Domina, who just briefly had a very White-like expression on her face, eyes staring off into the middle distance, mouth set firm and serious. And if she looked a little deeper she could see... fear? Then Domina shook her head like she was trying to clear it and nodded with a grin.

"Well, of course. But first, 1KL, if we could talk in private?"

* * *

It had been easier for Domina to slip into the mindscape since she lost her organic form. It was one of the few things that she actually was thankful for about being hard light now.

Just the briefest glow of her gem after she had closed her eyes and memories laid out before her, swirling gently in a breeze seen but not felt. Domina began to gently coast through the swirl of memories, peaking briefly into those that showed untouched worlds from their lower atmospheres, some were green and healthy, others sandy and cold. And then there were gems, so many gems over the years. And her, 1KL had really been the one to teach her to fly and it was odd to see her own childish smiling face reflected back at her. Domina began going farther and farther back, before the war, before the outer colonies. Any moment she expected to see blue Diamond emerge but before she got to that she was met with a wall of static. This is what Domina was expecting. A long row of memories, some static'd out, others were only ghosts of memories, tattered, in pieces. Domina frowned, these were the hardest to fix, sometimes the pieces still lingered but so rarely did she ever deal with memories that were tampered with this far back.

She hadn't realized just how old 1KL really was.

Domina started with what was easiest. She took the static'd memories in hand and wiped at them gently, softly, like they were living beings in need of comfort. And she let herself peer into them, feeling the emotions within them. It wasn't joy like she expected or heartache, or fear. It was... bewilderment. She felt confusion in front of White and Blue Diamond. She could see the surprise and worry on White's face. Though their voices were only half-audible she could hear the emotion in Blue's voice, a kind of dogged determination that was something she had never heard from Blue Diamond before.

There was more hidden in the static, Old domed stations that were certainly not of gem design, open rooms, arguments, charts, plans, lines. All in spurts, all important but with no context. Domina returned to the main section of the mindscape to find it, not dark as it normally was, but blindingly white, as the memories began to file into order, like books on a shelf.

Domina looked around in a panic but calmed when she saw that the ones she had been working on were still there. Still, there was something wrong. What had she done? Slowly the area around her began to dim until all was left was a soft glow around her. Domina tensed, holding on to the feeling of her gem glowing so that she could keep herself in the mindscape. Then she spoke out, not with her voice and not really with her firmly occupied mind.

"Is anyone there?" She asked, hoping beyond hope that there wasn't an answer. Thankfully there wasn't. Domina turned to the shredded memories, focusing on the pieces that she did have. There wasn't much left, a flash of ground, of the sky, and of hand. Domina focused on the six-fingered hand, trying to make more of it out. She could feel a thrumming behind her gem and slowly, like sand trickling into a pile, the picture began to form.

Domina would worry about why that worked later, later when she wasn't focused on the fact that what she was staring at was... it was... it was a face. No no, not just a face. It was purple, with four eyes, laid out on either side of its head, and a beak like a bird. It was an alien. A fracking alien. Something pulled her away, forcing her racing mind calm, reminding her that there was still more work to do.

And Domina didn't remember doing it but by the end Apatite 1KL's memories were in order, as clear as if they hadn't been tampered with in the first place. The light around Domina faded and the memories began to rise, lifted once again by an invisible wind before Domina finally let go and returned to the real world.


	18. Chapter 18

***rises from the depths of the internet like the phoenix reborn* Sup?**

** so long story short I've been having a rough go of it. Mental health is a hard thing to manage when you've got a lot of outside stressors in your life and the things you enjoy are often the first to go while you spiral for stability. That being said I'm... I won't say back to my regular schedule, but I'm atleast back on board, and back writing. so hopefully I'll have something for you, if not monday, then maybe by mid-next-week. Thank you to squish for betaing for me when I messaged you out of the blue that I had a chapter. and Thank you to everyone who came back to read this chapter. You guys are truly great.**

Blue Diamond was well aware that Jet kept track of her movements and transmissions. And she had her own thoughts about this breach of privacy, ones that she kept to herself because, to be frank, she was lucky she was unbubbled and corporeal.

So in return, she kept track of Jet. It was never any sort of active spying, such things were beneath her. But she did have any requests the pearl made mirrored to her own computer. Usually, they were all work related. The pearl seemed to have a delicate finger in countless projects and kept her eye on the goings on of just about everything throughout the empire. Occasionally, a personal message would come through, usually from one of the other pearls on the council. Sometimes, White's former pearl would send her a message, or surprisingly Yellow herself. Blue rarely pried into those, she had some sense of decorum after all.

The day after the conversation with the Ukanth, she had more important things to worry about. She had reports coming in from every member of her court that had ever dealt with member species of the intergalactic alliance. None specified any contact with any of the five species that made up the core of the alliance. And there were no signs of any strange activities that would indicate any subterfuge. She had just finished a conversation with one of her gems involved in counterintelligence when there was a blip on her screen, a message that an unidentified object found near Homeworld's mantle had been requested by and delivered to JPearl-HGC-2.

She exited her chambers immediately, striding down the hall, shrinking with every step until she was small enough to simply walk into the room the pearls had claimed for themselves.

"Seriously?" Jet asked from her position on the far wall. Blue Diamond paused briefly to shoot her a disdainful glare before panning her gaze around the room. Yellow was there as well, along with the three diamonds' pearls and that green one that Yellow insisted was better than her emerald.

And on the table in the center of the room, being prodded at by said green pearl, was an orb of clearly non-gem origin.

"This needs to be destroyed," She said, moving to grab the object. The green pearl, Forest or something like that, slapped her hand out of the way. Simultaneously, Jet got to her feet.

"Like shale you are!" Jet snapped.

"Not while I'm working!" Forest squawked.

"Blue, what?" Yellow sputtered. Blue Diamond gritted her teeth.

"It's not of gem origin." She said, pointedly hoping that Yellow would get the message.

"Well of course it's not," Forest said snidely, rolling her eyes.

"You're impertinence is unnecessary."

"Leave her alone," Her pearl said. To her credit, Blue Pearl didn't so much as flinch when Blue Diamond turned her gaze on her former servant.

"You of all people should know the danger in messing with this." Blue Diamond snapped. Blue Pearl gritted her teeth, unease clearly evident on her face, but she still stared back with pale blue eyes.

"Do you know which of the species this belongs to?" Blue Pearl asked evenly. "The Ukanth clearly wouldn't make something like this." Blue Diamond pursed her lips. The pearl was right, and to be honest, this whole thing wasn't the ukanth's style, they never took the first move in any conflict that Blue Diamond had read about. In fact, the appearance of the device itself ruled out six of the eleven members of the galactic council that would even dare to spy on them.

"Even if I did, it would be unnecessary for you to know." She said.

"Unnecessary? Really, Blue?" Yellow Diamond said. "I may not know much about the civilizations you deal with but there are gems at stake."

"Which is why you need to leave it to me."

"There's no way you can honestly expect us to trust you!?" Jet cut in.

"I never asked you to trust me." Blue Diamond curled her lip and rolled her eyes. "And I don't need your approval."

"Like stars you don't, that's part of the whole arrangement!"

"Jet," Yellow's Pearl said. "Your not helping."

"No, she's right." Yellow Diamond said. "Blue, this involves all of us!"

"White entrusted this to me!"

"White is gone!"

"And that's the entire problem!" Blue Diamond slammed a fist down on the table top, jostling Forest's tools and the device which clattered to the floor with a distinctly ceramic sound. Unfortunately, it stayed in one piece.

"None of you understand the kind of danger we could be in if we let even one hint of weakness show!" She didn't attempt to compose herself, and she knew she was letting rage leak through. She could see Yellow's hands clench as the room turned a pale blue. "And I am not going to chance any of you ruining the peace I have been carefully cultivating since we first made contact with other races!" She pulled back her aura like a swirl of her robes and stormed out, crushing the alien device underfoot as she went.

* * *

Steven had been along with Domina on a few of these memory fixings now. And after the gems got their memories back it was always a little awkward. Some cried, or shouted angrily. One of them, a jade, had immediately poofed the moment Domina finished and last time Steven heard, She hadn't reformed yet. 1KL, when her and Domina came back from one of the ship's side rooms, was quieter. In shock, kind of like a lot of the Crystal Gems were once they were uncorrupted by Stevima.

But 1KL didn't back down on their plans. She still borrowed one of the ship's roaming eyes and took the three of them down to the planet. And Steven was thankful that Pink was there, because post memory fixing, Domina was nervous, and when Domina was nervous, she talked _a lot_. 1KL didn't really seem to feel like talking, but Pink was at least interested in listening to Domina talk about the possibilities of colonizing the planets that had already been stripped bare.

That was another thing that was kind of weird to Steven when he thought about it long enough. Could that just happen to a planet? He and Connie had talked enough about that one environmental science class she'd had to take and about that scare about humans using up all of the Earth's resources. Could that happen to another species?

"I'll put us down near one of the complexes on the equator." 1KL said, breaking her hour long silence.

"Excellent, thank you." Domina said quickly.

"Is Steven going to be able to breathe?" Pink Diamond asked.

"Uh... what do you need a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen or something like that?" 1KL asked.

"Yeah but it's ok," Steven said, rummaging around in his backpack "Domina gave me her space scuba mask."

"...What is a scuba mask?" 1KL asked.

"The Earth version of a personal atmospheric regulator." Domina shrugged. Steven meanwhile untangled the white wristband from his headphones. "Just as a warning, Steven, the gravity is probably going to be weird."

"Awesome," Steven grinned.

Domina was the first one out of the ship, while Steven lagged behind, working his jaw to get his ears to stop popping. There was a yelp and then moments later Domina flew back into view of the door after being blown sideways.

"The winds are really strong!" She shouted as the darkness outside slowly got brighter. "Give me a second and let me see if I can control anything!"

"Wow, could anything even live here?" Pink asked, poking her head out the door while Domina hovered midair, looking like she was in a wind tunnel.

"Something obviously did!" Domina shouted back as her gem glowed. Steven chuckled as the two of them yelled back and forth. Pink's hair growing more and more wild and Domina flailing in the high winds like a kite on a string. 1KL also chuckled softly, though it seemed a little halfhearted.

"Are you coming with us?" Steven asked as the winds outside began to move and arc away from Domina and subsequently Pink Diamond. 1KL hesitated but finally shook her head.

"No, I need some time to...think." She said, then smiled back at him. "Keep Domina out of trouble though."

* * *

There had been a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach since the moment 1KL had mentioned the planet. Granted, she knew about it months ago but Domina hadn't felt anything regarding the planet, other than general interest.

But the moment 1KL had mentioned the planet, had mentioned the abandoned structures on it she felt... afraid. But it was like second hand fear, there was no reason for her to be afraid.

She didn't have time to focus on that though. The wind was nearly as strong as her, and keeping a semi protected bubbled around the three of them was hard enough, especially when Pink kept stopping to look at plants.

Though Domina had to admit, the fact that plants could exist here, even the short ones that clung to the red craggy rocks they worked their way around, was incredible.

"This is..." Pink paused as she touched a leaf of one of them hesitantly. The plant immediately widened and looked like it was about to bud... something when she pulled her hand away and the effects faded. "It's like one of those plants that comes out after a forest has burnt down." She looked up at Domina and smiled. "You know?"

"...Not particularly." Domina said, "What did you do to that plant?"

"Oh uh nothing, nothing happened." Pink said quickly, a little too quickly for Domina to actually believe her.

"So how much farther is the building?" Steven asked, his curls just barely peaks out from beyond the atmospheric field's range. How he had gotten taller than Domina in such a short amount of time was beyond her.

"Maybe another hour or two." Domina said, peering ahead of them. The building up ahead was large and low to the ground, probably to protect it from the winds. And it was... familiar. What was the name of that thing they talked about in human movies? 'Day jar view'? A feeling that you had been here before? Domina mused as she looked around.

"Alright, we should probably move, it looks like the sun's going down... again." Steven said. "Which is like the second time now!"

"The planet rotates really fast. I think that's why it's so windy." Pink said. Domina sighed and shook her head.

"That is not how that works." She said, then started moving, as a subtle nudge that everyone else should too, to keep inside the bubble she had made. Steven half walked, half bounced along, occasionally remarking on another plant. But Domina didn't slow down. Why did this place seem so familiar? The architecture, even the ruddy scrub land. Finally they reached the building, as the sun began to rise for the third time since they landed. There was a key pad next to the door, one that was covered with dust, it's symbols partially obscured.

"Well how are we supposed to get in." Pink asked, still apparently a bit miffed that Domina had pulled her away from what had supposedly been a bit of fossilized wood. Steven was more focused on something else that was arguably more interesting to Domina.

"Those... those are gem numbers." He said pointing at the pad. Domina nodded and gently wiped away the dirt revealing something that wasn't quite the same, but pretty close to the numbers she had used her entire life and were now, here, billions of lightyears away from homeworld.

"Huh." Was all Pink said in a kind of stumped sort of way. Domina cautiously pushed the buttons and a screen on top of the pad lit up showing the number there, accompanied by a note. A music note. A part of her brain, her programming, her awareness, whatever you wanted to call it, knew exactly what note too. 'F' Sharp Major Seventh, or if you were Stevima, 'High'. Steven looked at her. And Domina didn't pause before punching in the next two notes; B Major Seventh , or 'Middle', and E Major Seventh, 'Low' which filled out the next two numbers. There was one left though, which kind of got rid of the idea that this door's passcode was related to the corruption song. That would just be crazy. But it did mean she had no idea which number came next.

And of course, whatever that feeling of Day-jar-view was, decided it wasn't going to be helpful in the least just now.

Surprisingly enough, it was Pink that leaned forward and after a moment pushed the next button, an 'A' minor 7th. And with a sharp grinding sound of metal on metal the door creaked open, the sand that had blown up against it spilling on to organically cut floor tiles.

Domina glanced at Pink who shrugged.

"It just felt right."


	19. Chapter 19

**It's done! finally here we go, a chapter I've been working on for a month, mostly out of writers block, but also mostly because I wanted to get this right. THank you squish for being patient and Thank you guys for all the lovely comments (that I will get around to replying to I swear)**

**See you guys next time!**

**Enjoy!**

Speaking as someone who had recently been brought back to life, this was quite possibly the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Pink Diamond. All the other Diamonds had told her about far off places, places where gems fought against other species, places where the empire dealt with beings intelligent enough to fight back against them, places where one gem could stand and see nothing but endless untouched void.

But no one had ever mentioned that they might find somewhere where gems had already been. Or at least, that's what Pink Diamond was assuming had happened. White was old enough, maybe she had just forgotten about this place?

The room on the other side of the locked door was hexagonal, with consoles about halfway up the wall. It was dark for a brief moment before it was bathed in white light. Domina strode forward and immediately gravitated to the consoles.

"What... what is this place?" Steven asked. "Are you sure the gems haven't been out here before?"

"I..." Domina stared at the console, brushing her hand over it gently. At that moment she looked more like White than Pink Diamond had ever seen her. Her face blank, with a hint of deeper emotion, anger. Then her face contorted in pain. And the room briefly went dark.

"Domina! Are you ok?" Steven asked. Pink Diamond immediately illuminated the room herself And saw Domina hunched over on the floor.

"What happened?" Pink asked baffled, she did glance around though, just in case there was actually something in here. Maybe something that ate gems? Was that why there were just these ruins?

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Domina said, holding up her hand as she got back to her feet. In the moments before Her gem began to glow once again, basked in pink light, her face looked normal, and her gem was clearly still intact. Pink relaxed slightly. "Headache."

"Well maybe we should go, something feels... off."

"We should stay precisely because it feels off," Domina said and Pink had to agree with her. They had only entered the first room, and Pink could see a hallway leading off into further darkness. Since Domina wasn't under attack by some horrifying gem eating monsters, Pink decided to begin edging towards the rest of the complex.

* * *

Steven hated scary movies. He had gone with Connie when Empire City had a horror film festival in one of the little cafes she liked to frequent with her college friends. The only thing that had saved him there were snacks, and the fact that his girlfriend was more than willing to keep him distracted in the dark during the scary parts.

But this was worse. This was like being _in _a horror movie. It was dark, they had entered a building that was clearly abandoned, there were weird symbols everywhere that kind of made sense but didn't really, and now their group was splitting up!

Domina didn't seem worried about Pink Diamond going off on her own. Instead, she took one last look around the first room then headed down the hallway in the opposite direction from where Pink had gone, moving with purpose and taking Steven's light source with him.

"Domina!" He hurried after her. "Where are you going? Why don't we just follow Pink?"

"There's-" Domina began with an air of certainty that she shook off. "There should be a control room, it'll have more information and maybe we can turn the lights on, or gravity, or even air systems if they still work." And that was another part of this that felt like a horror movie. Domina was acting... weird. And really she had been for a while but now especially.

"How do you know?" Steven asked. He stopped in front of another branch in the hallway. Domina kept moving, and only stopped when she apparently stopped hearing his hops behind her. Domina turned, briefly blinding him before angling her head to the side.

"I..." Domina hesitated and glanced to the side, illuminating a sign that said something about genetics. "Do you ever get the feeling that you've been somewhere before," Domina said finally, her shoulders slumping. "Or more specifically that your mother has been somewhere before?"

Steven tensed. This was like the worst possible answer to the question, right up there with 'I was wrong we have been here before, I think we wiped this planet out for their store of ammonia,' or some other answer you would accept from a friend who was basically a space dictator, albeit a space dictator that did her best not to be a dictator. But that was beside the point. What Domina was saying was like, his greatest fear, just not happening to him. He shook his head and Domina sighed. "Have you told anyone else about this?" He asked.

Domina laughed softly and turned to keep walking. "Of course not, at best they'll think I'm cracked, at worst... we don't need rumors going around that White Diamond is still alive."

The rest of their conversation was cut off by entry into the next room.

It was a lot like the first room, full of hexagonal screens from wall to wall. There was a set of consoles in the center that Domina gravitated towards. There were actual buttons there. Like, usually gems controlled stuff through a touch screen, but there was something that looked like a keyboard and a few things that kind of looked switches and toggles. Domina peered down at the controls with intense concentration then pressed a few buttons.

The room blinked to life, various screens booted up and began displaying readouts, Domina hummed happily as the lights turned on.

"Now, let's figure out what this place is."

* * *

The direction Pink took down the hallway ended at a room, a diamond sized room, true she had been able to stand comfortably in the hallway until now. With the ceiling just barely brushing her head. But in this space, White could have stood straight up with room to spare.

Initially, all she saw were blocks beyond a railing that ran around the circumference of the room. Then, three steps in, as she was leaning over it to look, the lights turned on, revealing a room filled to the brim with narrow pods. Hopefully, that was Domina messing around and not some kind of ancient security system she had just woken up. The kind with lasers.

The closest pod clearly had something in it, that much Pink could see, but it was covered with a thick layer of frost. Pink looked again at the floor and judged the distance with a shrug before jumping over the edge. The ground was laid out much like the areas above, and when Pink looked up, the pods stretched on for miles. There had to be millions all full of... Of what?

She was distracted by a series of pops to her right and flashes of light as one of the cryo pods shorted out. By the time she got there, there was cool air coming off the pod as it depressurized, and the frost was starting to melt to reveal... nothing? Pink frowned and inspected the pod a little more carefully. There was a handle at the left side and with a fairly firm tug, the door popped open. Frigid air poured out accompanied by a roll of fog. Something slowly slumped forward as the little gravity the planet did have dragged it down. Out fell an alien, a small one. It was only maybe as long as Pink's arm, with a body that was mostly a blue green-scaled tail. The top was humanoid, one head, a chest that sucked in the thin air in the room it had spilled out on too. Its eyes stayed shut but its mouth opened to reveal needle-like fangs as it whimpered

Pink crouched down quickly. It was obviously hurt or worse, she was pretty sure anything organic shouldn't be kept so cold, especially when one was so small. But she also didn't really know what this was, maybe some sort of reptile? It was definitely a young one of its kind. She carefully reached out a hand and touched the creature's... hair? The tendrils on top of its head at the very least. They weren't scaley, but it definitely didn't feel like human hair. The creature's eyes opened, though they remained unfocused, yellow with a single long pupil. She could feel unease in the creature, it wasn't well. It needed help.

Animals were different than plants. More complex, more bones. And Pink had less experience with them. Less experience with healing in general! Gems just didn't heal, that wasn't what they were for. But... Pink bit her lip. Rose could heal and Rose had never stood for any of that 'Wasn't what they were for' nonsense.

"You don't have to be for anything Pink." Rose had once said, the third or fourth time they had met, secretly on Earth away from both prying crystal gems and the guard that Blue had insisted she needed in the latter days of the war. "Earth has proven that much." They were sitting at the edge of a kindergarten, the ground below them was drained to nothing but lifeless dust. "That you can be whatever you want, do whatever _you_ want."

Pink had known for the longest time that for gems to continue to exist they had to take from existing life. 'Aimless organic life' as White had put it. And Pink had... accepted that. After all, if it wasn't for the draining of a planet, she wouldn't exist. But she did love organic life, as paradoxical as it was. She loved it, maybe not like Rose did, but like Blue loved newly created art, like Yellow, loved technological advancements, like White loved the search for the next new start. And it was what she wanted. To see organic life flourish, and right now, she wanted to see it live.

Pink's gem glowed and the cloud of cold was broken by its radiant warmth. The creature's whimpers stopped as it continued to fight for air. Pink could feel the stress on its tiny frame though and did her best to ease that. She pushed the glow, the warmth of her gem into it, allowing all she saw to become blackness, highlighted in pink where she could see the creatures life force, its spark was steadily growing stronger. Pathways throughout its frame were broken and she nudged them back together albeit a bit clumsily.

But the creature still needed air, something to feed the spark into a flame. And she didn't have a way to give that. And if the creature didn't get that and didn't live... Rose could revive dead organics, but Pink wasn't so sure she could, and this wasn't the time to find out.

So she focused on doing as much as she could, desperately racking her head for answers. Finally the darkness and pink light began to fade, and despite the ache in her gem, she tried to pull back, to prevent her strength from returning to only support her. And then suddenly, her form shifted, correcting for the introduction of gravity to the room. The creature toppled forward more, chest heaving, and mouth gasping more rapidly as Pink felt tears come to her eyes. This wasn't fair, she had done all she could, it should be enough, she shouldn't have to watch this creature di-.

Pink could feel the air change, and for a moment she thought Domina had entered the room and braced herself to give an explanation. But instead the creature's gasping eased and its chest steadied.

Its tail curled and its body rose, eyes focusing, tendril-like hair waving in the air now circulating through the base. It chirped at Pink, questioningly and moved towards her to put a clawed hesitant hand on her knee.

Pink felt her stress subside and wiped the tears from her eyes in relief before speaking.

"Hey there, I hope you feel better."

* * *

Domina was focused on the gauges and dials in front of her so Steven supposed that it was up to him to try to figure out what was going on. What this place was supposed to be, and maybe, just maybe, why it was scaring Domina so much.

The only problem was this was not at all the gem he was used to. He thought that he had a pretty good grasp of gem script but this was like looking at old Viking runes. He could pick something out about an attack. Something else about evacuation and, 'emergency storage of genetic data'. Or at least he thought that was what that series of lines and curls meant. It was either that or it was talking about a party in the library... which was probably not right.

He took pictures of as much of the documents on the various screens as he could though. Just in case they needed it later.

"Here's the gravity..." Domina said. She made a few keystrokes and Steven felt his stomach lurch like he had just taken a step off of a stair step that was higher than he thought. "And now the air systems." Not that he didn't trust Domina but he'd wait a little longer to test that particular system for himself.

"Hey is the sideways 'E' a vowel or is it the 'sh' sound?" Steven asked.

"Shh."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Er, that's not what I meant." Domina said, Steven listened and there was nothing, nothing except a grinding coming from a long way off.

"Maybe is just something from the air ducts?" Steven asked softly. Domina shook her head with a frown.

"That's not the kind of sounds an air system makes," Domina said. Meanwhile, onscreen a bar was slowly filling, at 50% an alarm blared, right as Steven finally translated what it said.

_Thaw Cycle Initiated._

"That's... not good," Steven said. Domina was already halfway out the door, winds whipping around her as she shouted into the complex:

"Pink! We've got to go! NOW!"

The creature was fully awake now, looking around and coiling around Pink and chittering. It inspected her form and also its surroundings. Pink chuckled.

"Well it didn't take you long to feel better." She carefully patted the creature's head and it chirped before unwinding and pressing its nose up against the doors to the other pods. "I don't know when they're going to wake up." Pink said, "Is your parent one of them?" The creature didn't respond, of course, but it did chirp and then coil around Pink's shoulders, resting its head on her shoulder pad.

She knew they couldn't stay for that long. Domina would want to leave and Pink had a feeling that she wouldn't want to take along an alien. The other Diamonds usually didn't like it when she brought organic beings back to Homeworld, especially after the Kyanite colony incident. But... Pink also knew what it was like to be alone when you know you shouldn't be. So she couldn't just leave it.

As Pink was contemplating exactly what she should do about this little... snake thing, its head perked up as the room suddenly filled with a low rumble. Pink could feel the pod she was leaning on begin to hum, and heat up. The creature slithered down her leg as Pink stood up. She needed to get out of here. Or at least go find Domina to make sure that she knew that they were about to have a ton of organics waking up. This was the kind of situation that Blue should probably be the one to deal with... Even if this creature was really cute. The creature was on the floor, with the end of her tail curled around the toe of Pink's foot.

"Ok..." Pink said, bending down to gently untangle the tail. "I have to g-"

Suddenly, the room was filled with blaring noise. The creature's eyes went wide and it coiled its way up to Pink's hair, faster than she could react.

"Hey no! Come on, you've gotta stay here, they'll be out soon, probably." Pink struggled to collect the creature but it slithered out of her grasp several times, squeaking and chirping in what Pink assumed was terror.

"PINK!" Pink Diamond heard Domina yelling and tried harder to remove the creature. It pulled at her hair, clearly with no intention of leaving.

"Ok, ok, fine!" Pink snapped as the alarms grew louder and the sound of Domina and Steven running began to echo down the hall. "You can come, just stay hidden!"


	20. Chapter 20

***bursts from the earths crust, yadda, yadda, yadda* alright, I have a chapter after beating off the depression monster with a pointed stick and therapy. And, this chapters update began with a bold claim, and these chapter notes will end with a bolder claim.**

**Thank you to everyone who has stuck around to read this story. As much as my mental health has fought me in doing any kind of writing, this story is going to get finished.**

**and with that**

**I will do my absolute best, to see you on Friday.**

When your reworking a millennia-old system set up intermittently by an even older being that tended towards being self-serving, it makes sense to start completely from scratch. Or at least that's what Domina did because there was no one to tell her that throwing out thousands of inconsequential little rules and regulations could actually be a bad thing.

In the moments after the door opened, as ancient words began to appear upon ancient screens, Domina remembered. She remembered a set of coordinates laying out forbidden directions for the empire's expansions to take. And after a brief conversation with Yellow and Blue, neither of them knew of a particular reason that the boundaries were set. So they removed the boundaries and Domina approved missions to go into the yet explored systems.

This had been a mistake. Not the first mistake they had made in reinventing the empire, but certainly, the first one that filled her with such dread. It was the first mistake that sent curses older than herself whirling through her head, that filled her mind with images of gems more ancient than the empire itself.

And it also gave her such a headache. A headache that she didn't have time to focus on because the only thing she could focus on was running, running with all her power on her back, even if Pink was behind them, even if her daughter was sentimental about this hybrid, no amount of slowing was worth it if they-

Domina tripped over the threshold of the door and face planted into the rocky soil outside.

"Domina!" Steven came to a stop behind her, panting.

"Sorry," Domina said, getting to her feet. She pressed her hand into the temple of her hand and felt a phantom heartbeat thrumming there. Domina had faced down hostile wildlife, her fellow diamonds at their most hostile, and the vacuum of space itself. But this, this constant intrusion by... by someone who should be gone, and this distrust of her own emotions. That terrified her more than anything. "Where's Pink?"

"I'm right here!" Pink's voice came from a little behind them but by the time Domina had turned the other diamond was next to Steven. "Domina there's a whole room full of-"

"Aliens." Domina finished, "makes sense considering the giant alien building."

"Rude," Pink said.

"I'll be polite when we don't have an entire alien civilization waking up behind us," Domina said pushing through her headache to create a tunnel in the air in front of them, into the rising sun.

It had taken them two hours to cross the distance from the facility to the ship, the return trip took less than a third of that.

"Pebble, what did you do?" 1KL asked the moment they boarded the ship.

"The planet is habited," Domina said as she made sure the door was shut firmly behind her. Despite the pounding headache, her head raced with the protocol Mossy had drilled into her.

"Actively habited?" a nervous wind swirled through the cockpit, and Domina couldn't really tell who was responsible.

"It will be as soon as they finish defrosting."

"What if they're friendly?" Steven asked. Pink Diamond looked at Domina too, running her fingers through her hair nervously. Presumably Pink knew as well as Domina did that even if they were friendly this was still an issue. Even if she doubted heavily that they were friendly.

"We can't know that for sure," Domina said, falling into a seat as the ship began to leave the atmosphere. "Even if they are friendly, if they've never had outside contact this could be considered an act of war depending on what they know about us. They could have been frozen to avoid a plague or some other disaster. Stars only know what it means that they're using the gem writing system." Domina could feel the panic rising within her, she may not have known the answer to those questions conscientiously but she could feel the answers hammering away at the inside of her skull, just waiting for the next time she was unconscious to breakthrough.

"Pebble," 1KL's voice snapped Domina out of her thoughts, forcing her to notice the galeforce winds that were developing inside the ship. "Domina, don't supernova. We need the ship in one piece to get out of here."

"Sorry, Sorry," Domina said, she sat down in one of the chairs and shoved her worries aside. She had to focus, yes she had memories about that planet that didn't belong to her but at the moment there was bureaucracy, irritating, soul-crushing, blissfully distracting bureaucracy. "Pink did you talk to anyone?" she asked, internally she had already checked off half of the requirements that Blue had set out for unintentional first contact.

"No of course not!" Pink said quickly, she ran a hand through her hair and shrugged, eyes drifting to the floor. "Who would I have talked too?"

"Right, right," Domina said. "So, do not spread this around. All of you, please" Domina said making eye contact with each of the occupants of the ship. "I will talk to Blue Diamond about this. And Yellow. And stars, maybe Blue Pearl. We will get this figured out."

They weren't alone in the flight back to the nearest station. Domina had insisted that the exploratory ship get out of that quadrant so they followed them back, to resupply and get upgrades done that had been put off for a few decades.

The trip back to Homeworld was more nerve-wracking. Domina didn't have her screen to bury herself in work. So she spent most of it pacing the length of the Styx, all 15 feet of it. While Pink sat on her bed, being quiet enough, that if Domina was less frantic, she would have asked about it. Steven did his best to distract her and pull Pink into a conversation about a movie that Crying Breakfast Friends was finally getting.

"I personally think the new villain is a pinwheel, Connie says she read a theory that she's actually a cinnamon roll, which I can definitely see," Steven said.

"Aren't those foods?" Pink asked finally breaking her silence.

"They're characters in a children's tv show," Domina said.

"It's not just for kids." Steven said, "Especially not after the whole arc with the Meal Supremacy." Pink looked at Domina in confusion and Domina just shrugged. Crying breakfast friends wasn't really her thing. Pearl liked it though.

The approach to Homeworld was normal enough. The Styx's onboard computer automatically connected to the server that held Domina's inbox and didn't stop beeping with new message notifications for the rest of the descent. Thankfully Steven had been through this often enough and turned the sound off. Then they pulled into the hangar and were greeted with the sight of a crowd close to the Styx's spot.

The worst immediately came to Domina's mind and after a moment of panic she saw her pea-, mom. Her mom, she thought the word as loud as possible as if she could smother anything else that might take that place in her mind.

So Pearl was ok and the other gems, Jet, Forest, Blue, Yellow pearl and Yellow diamond, all looked to be intact. Which meant something else had happened.

"That's not a good sign." Steven said glancing at Domina out of the corner of his eye. Domina grimaced.

"At least it looks like the planets still in one piece."

* * *

Pink Diamond couldn't believe that she had gotten this far without being found out. The creature had been awake up until the time they had gotten into Domina's ship, at which point it had fallen asleep in her hair. And then when they got to homeworld it was awake again, Pink managed to pass off pressing it's head down below her curls as running her fingers through her hair nervously. Still, just in case she decided to be the last one off of the Styx.

"Domina this is unacceptable." Jet's shrill voice caused the creature to perk up again slightly, and pink resorted to petting it's scales to get it to stay still.

"Yes Jet, I'm well aware and I'll talk to her," Domina said holding one hand to her temple and gesturing with the other. "But, stars... an alien device of some sort? Have any more been reported?"

"Not yet." Jet grimaced

"Of course it doesn't help anything that she has locked us out of any useful information on any outside civilizations that could help with narrowing this down." Blue's Pearl said, her lips were pursed in irritation. That kind of made sense from Pink's perspective, after all, they were lesser gems. But they were supposed to be working together, right? That was the whole point of this Era 3 business.

"She..." Domina looked at Yellow aghast. Yellow pursed her lips and nodded hesitantly.

"She locked... them out of it." An irritated wind blew through the hangar, disrupting her hair and getting dangerously close to revealing Pink's passenger.

"Yellow." Domina finally said, Her voice wasn't quite at the scary levels that White got to when she was mad. But Pink could definitely tell she was disappointed. "Change their clearances to 10, it should have been done a long time ago. I'm going to go talk to Blue."

At this point, Pink was pretty confident that she could slip away and so she did, stepping backward and shuffling into a side hallway, that she was pretty sure still led straight to the citadel. The creature had apparently gotten the hint that it needed to stay out of sight, though Pink could feel it getting restless.

"This sounds like a mess."

"Ah! Nothing!" Pink said jumping and turning to see Steven looking at her confused.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Pink said quickly "And uh yeah... I mean I can't blame Blue, the Pearls are great but she has spent a lot of time dealing with other aliens."

"Yeah, she's got a lot of experience but like...Domina is trying to get people to work together, and she did kind of ruin Jet's investigation from what I heard."

Pink shruged. "I mean, they're just pearls, it'll be fine." Steven blinked and gave Pink a very Rose like look, slightly uncomfortable, slightly disappointed, slightly encouraging like he really wanted her to do better. Pink awkwardly ran her hair through her head, pushing the creatures head back down gently. "So uh, are you going back to Earth?"

"Yeah, I told the gems I'd be home and Connie said she would be by as soon as she got out of class." Steven gestured down a hallway that Pink was pretty sure still had a galactic warp attached to it. "Are you ok Pink, with everything we saw?

"Everything I see is already weird," Pink said with a grin, at least this was a different subject. "So what's an alien race that predates the gems?" Steven chuckled softly.

"Yeah... Well, I'll see you later pink, maybe you can come the next time Domina comes to help me heal the corrupted gems."

Pink returned to her room without any further interruptions. The moment she was inside, she closed the door and crossed to the opposite wall, resisting the urge to fling herself into the pillows that were piled on the floor. Her passenger finally peaked it's head out of her hair after she was no longer trying to keep it down to look around curiously.

"Hi there." She said smiling up at it with her eyes. "I guess you can stay here, I haven't had any pets in the palace in a long time but you should be safe here, just don't like... Get out and chase any of the pearls around or anything." The creature wound it's way down her arm and immediately disappeared into the pile of pillows.

"Oh, yeah, this has all got to be really scary for you isn't it. Poor thing." Pink said smile fading. She pressed into the wall of her room and the hatch swung open.

When she had first returned to Homeworld Pink Diamond had found the secret alcove within her room pretty much in ruins. All the plants were dead with the watering system run dry. There were still a few organisms she had bubbled and those were left untouched. She did have some food, remnents of when they were developing the nutrient compound for her zoo. But she wasn't entirely sure how good it really was.

"You can try this," Pink said dusting off a few small blue cubes. The creature poked its head out from the pillows, nostrils flaring before its face wrinkled in confusion. Then it disappeared back into the pile with a high pitched grumble. "Yes, I think the final version might taste better, I mean Domina lived on it for like ever, so it can't be that bad." Pink slid the panel back but put the nutrient cubes on the floor just in case. "I'll go see if I can get some, Domina probably won't mind if I take s-" Pink was cut off by the door opening. She kept her eyes on the inert pile of pillows for a split second longer, then turned to look up at Blue Diamond.

"Oh Pink, you're back!" Blue said smiling as she walked into Pink's Room. Pink focused on making her smile less nervous as she moved in front of the pillow pile.

"Blue, did you talk to Domina, cause I think she was looking for you." for multiple reasons

Blues smile disappeared. "I did speak to Domina, but that's nothing for you to worry about. Tell me about your trip where did you go?" Pink frowned slightly had Domina not told her about the planet? She shrugged.

"To a planet one of the exploration ships found. Domina had a gem to fix out there, it was fun, there was a lot of life." That wasn't a complete lie, as the creature hiding a mere few feet away from them proved. "Domina didn't tell you about it?" Pink probed.

"All Domina talked to me about was the fact that I should let the Pearls handle what could turn into a major diplomatic incident," Blue said pursing her lips in the kind of way that Pink remembered from the way she used to react to some of White's ideas.

"But they don't have to take it over, maybe they could help?" Pink asked, remembering Steven's words. "Domina certainly thinks they should." Blue chuckled, but not in amusement, more like pity, like Pink was just being so silly. again.

"Oh, Pink, you, just... it's very complicated. You can't really understand what you're saying Domina's not..." Blue's words trailed off.

"Domina's not what?" Pink asked frowning. Blue sighed.

"She's not like me, or Yellow, or even you. And she's certainly not anything like White." apparently Pink's face betrayed her reaction to Blue's words because the blue matriarch held up her hand in a defensive expression. "She does her best and certainly is adept in some areas, but she's hardly a true diamond.

"Hardly a..." Something else registered with Pink and she shook her head in agitation. "What do you mean even me? I'm a Diamond!"

"Yes yes, of course, you are " Blue held out her hands placatingly. "You are just not very experienced yet Pink."

"And whose fault is that?" Pink said stepping forward indignantly. "Domina's only a little younger than me and everyone else treats her more like a diamond than me!" She hated how whiny her voice sounded.

"Domina's...different," Blue said slightly uneasy head tilt.

"So? She's not that different! Not any more different than me. We're both off-color!" That made Blue frown.

"Pink you are not off-color," She corrected. "A diamond cannot be off-color."

"Well if I'm not off-color then why won't you and Yellow treat me the same as Domina!" Pink yelled, stamping her foot in anger, toppling a few pillows from the pile.

The room was suddenly enveloped in desperate grief that sent Pink plummeting to her knees.

"Because we can't lose you again Pink!" Blue shouted. Pink wiped away the tears and struggled back to her feet.

"Even before!" She shouted, her voice cracking as she did so. "The first person to ever treat me like I had anything important to say was Rose and she-"

"Don't mention her name, Pink!" Blue snapped, her tears angry, and furious. Another wave of her aura toppled Pink again. "it's because of her that we lost you!"

"No, you lost me because you wouldn't listen to me! You're not even listening to me now!" Pink shouted through the tears.

"I-" Blue searched for her words and the aura faded. Pink took in a shuddery breath as she finally stood once again in front of Blue. "Oh Pink..you just... you wouldn't understand."

"I can try."

Blue sighed and shook her head before turning and leaving.

Finally alone in her room, Pink flopped onto a pillow, fists clenched, angry tears welling to her eyes. She slammed one down on a pillow and let out a yell. Only to hear a squeak from behind her. The creature emerged, looking concerned. It reached out a hand and wiped her tears making a lilting hissing sound. Pink chuckled, it was funny, it acted like it really understood what was going on.

"It's always been like that." Pink said, "Some things really don't change."


	21. Chapter 21

**The one upside to really long breaks was that the chapters were actually longer. but I hope you guys are ok with this. I am certainly thrilled that I managed to get this out. I'm really excited to be getting into what I've been unofficially been calling "Act 3" in my notes. and I'm doing my best not to go nuts with world building.**

**Enjoy!**

**I'll see you guys monday :)**

"I think I've heard you talk about the Ukanth before." Yellow Pearl studied the screens in front of her, scrolling through profiles of the alien species that made up the intergalactic council. She had other things to work on. Implantation on the first test batch of the new injector formula was only a few weeks away but she knew that if she focused anymore on the series of gemetic equations her form would release out of self-defense.

"Most likely." Blue Pearl "My- Blue Diamond interacts with them the most. Though I doubt that they are responsible for this." Blue was looking a little more intently at the screens. She sat in the chair behind Yellow's desk, leaning so far forward she might as well not be sitting down. Yellow was sitting cross-legged on top of the desk, watching her from the other side of the yellow screen. She tried to focus on the words her counterpart was saying, and not how lovely she looked in green.

"-more races that would have the motives and capabilities to infiltrate homeworld." Blue had continued. Yellow's mind snapped back into focus.

"Such as?"

"Well, the Marensi actually have 6 fingers to start. Though they certainly would not go unnoticed on Homeworld." Blue Pearl frowned and slid a screen to the side. Yellow took it and saw a picture of some kind of tentacled cephalopod. The caption read "Tarens"

"But the Xylems I believe have been historically antagonistic towards us." Blue Pearl continued. "And the Starok and Cranths."

"Does anyone like us?" Yellow pearl asked, only half-jokingly. Blue Pearl smiled and gave her a tired laugh. One that made her want to drag her back to their apartment to rest. Something Blue usually was doing for her.

"No. Not particularly.".

* * *

"Ok now pull!" Domina shouted from the underside of the thing that could generously be referred to as a ship. Jet sighed and looked at Yellow Diamond who was also half bent inside the ship's access panel while Forest held a length of cable. In hindsight, it would have been a better idea for her to corner the two diamonds in a meeting room instead of... whatever this was.

"Stop stop!" Yellow Diamond ordered suddenly, her voice interrupting Forest's movement backward as she grabs the length of the cable and held it still firmly. Forest fell.

"Hey!" Forest protested.

"Domina what in star's name is this!?" Yellow Diamond asked holding up a loose wire.

"Well I'm not looking at it so I can't tell you," Domina said, her voice muffled. Forest got to her feet, shoved Yellow Diamond to the side, and looked into the panel. The next moment Domina had been shoved from underneath the... "ship" and Forest was in her place, swearing loudly.

"If we can continue," Jet asked. Domina forced a smile and Jet could see that it truly was forced. She was honestly beginning to wonder how long it was going to take for this diamond to break. And what would happen when she did...

"Sorry, the new model of screens doesn't interface right with the Styx and-"

"Nothing interfaces right with the Styx." Yellow Diamond pointed out.

"Anyway!" Jet said firmly. "Three more devices have been found, on Homeworld alone and I have reports of others being found in several of the inner colonies."

"Fantastic." Yellow Diamond frowned and folded her arms. "The search needs to be expanded to the outer ones as well, they are more susceptible to incursions from outsiders as is. I am sure that there are more there."

"They are being kept somewhere safe correct?" Domina asked. Jet returned her question with a withering stare.

"I'm not an idiot, of course, they are. Feldspar is responsible for keeping them out of Blue Diamonds' hands. I am relying on you two, as much as it pains me to get Blue Diamond to figure out where these are coming from." Jet said. Yellow Diamond raised and eyebrow and Domina opened her mouth as if to say something, then frowned and shook her head.

"Understandable. We'll do the best we can especially if these are the same people responsible for those messages-"

"Is this DUCT TAPE?!" Forest shouted, her voice very easily carrying from underneath the Styx to where they were standing. Yellow Diamond stared at Domina who burst into laughter. The laughter that sounded a little more...hysterical than normal.

Jet resolved to tell Pink about this.

* * *

She hadn't told them yet. Domina knew she should have told... at least Yellow the moment she stepped off of the Styx. She should have told Blue Diamond before, or maybe after, they had argued loudly enough to be heard across the citadel. She should have told Pearl the moment they entered Homeworld's atmosphere.

But she hadn't. Part of Domina was hoping that it would all just go away. That was the same part that was afraid.

Afraid because suddenly her headache was _gone_ as if it had never existed in the first place.

Afraid of how familiar that place was.

Afraid of the times that she felt as if she wasn't the one piloting her body.

That place was dangerous. She knew that much and Domina had skirted a black hole before. She knew what danger was. She would have rathered done laps around the center of the galaxy than go back there.

But instead of telling someone, and explaining to them why she was so afraid, and risking them worrying for her when there were so many other disasters going on at the moment. Domina distracted herself. There was more than enough work to do that with. And she even started the paperwork for the toroidal planet. Her finger hovered over the send icon before closing it.

Soon enough though Pearl found Domina in Pearl's office, sitting in the corner, scrolling through reports, in the dark.

"They've finished the apartment building. If you want to configure your room you can." Pearl said from the door. Domina blinked her eyes at the sudden light.

"Oh, already?" She asked. Everything felt stiff. Which was weird as she shouldn't feel stiff. She didn't have muscles. And really she shouldn't feel so tired.

"Already?" Pink asked sounding surprised. She turned on the light and Domina could more clearly see her worried expression. "It's been three days since you got back. They said it would take barely a week"

"Three... stars, I need to call Steven." Domina sighed.

"Have you been working here this entire time?" Pearl asked. Domina smiled softly, she recognized that tone of voice.

"I have." She said. Her finger hovering over the call button as if she actually was going to press it.

"Domina take a break," Pearl said, she sounded a little more worried than usual and Domina did feel a little guilty. She needed to figure out how to get a better grasp on time.

"Well if you insist," Domina said, getting to her feet. She flashed Pearl the biggest smile she could muster as she walked passed her only for Pearl to grab her shoulder.

"Domina, are you ok?" Pearl asked.

"Fine, absolutely fine," Domina said quickly, all this time and she still hadn't figured out how she was going to explain this to Pearl.

"Domina," Pearl said again, more stern this time. Domina rose off the ground.

"I'll go configure my settings. I'll meet up with you later." She said before taking off. Behind her, she could hear Pearl shouting her name again, angrier and Domina hesitated briefly, before exiting the citadel through a window and soaring through Homeworld's sky.

The area had definitely been rebuilt. All the spires were repaired or replaced but Domina did notice some of the lesser places hadn't quite been finished yet. Or started. She shook her head as she landed on the internal warp. Always more work to do.

The physical part of Domina and Pearl's home was basically identical as it had been before the quake. Except of course for her couch. She would have to get that from Earth. Which considering that the Styx was currently grounded, per Forest, meant bringing it through the galactic warp. Which honestly sounded like it was more trouble than it was worth.

The door was right though, thank the stars. It had taken three tries the last time for the Allanite technician to finally understand that they wanted the Diamond and Pearl indicators on the door to be side by side.

Domina took an unnecessary breath and opened her door. The room inside was white. A tabula rasa to be projected upon.

"Show me home." She said after the door closed behind her. She kept her gem glowing. Letting the room get used to her, to her past. To what she thought home looked like. Domina closed her eyes agaisnt the brightness of the room. Something that was generally counterproductive, but she was terrified of watching the desert landscape of the toroidal planet take shape in front of her.

Time past, she couldn't see light changing in front of her. She couldn't feel simulated wind.

So... she took a chance and opened them nearly bursting into tears when she saw the smooth pale walls of what had been her and her father and pearl's rooms within the fleet.

She was still her. Still Domina.


	22. Chapter 22

**Well this chapter didn't go how I wanted. Neither did this week really either but it's alright. I've got a chapter for you, it's late and really fluffy but hey, whatever.**

**I'll be back next week, probably on monday, but maybe on friday again. I'm taking a writing class that meets monday nights so mondays a bit busier.**

**thanks so much though, to everyone reading and leaving comments. I really appreciate it**

It wasn't unusual for Domina to withdraw when she was overworked. After 4,643 years Pink was used to her ebbs and flows. And it wasn't unusual for Domina to keep information from Pearl until she had all the facts. Or until it blew up so drastically that _everyone _knew. Granted, Domina could accuse her of the same thing.

This time though, Homeworld that was under such pressure that if- no, _when_ something did blow up, there might not be much planet left.

Pink Pearl left her office behind, already opening her communicator to dial Domina.

No response, assuming she wasn't mid-flight she had most likely already gone into her room and reception inside was spotty at best.

Pink Pearl pursed her lips and dialed Steven.

Also no response. The program on her screen indicated that it was Earth's night cycle so he was probably asleep.

Pink Pearl stepped into a crossroads of corridors in the citadel. One way led to a warp pad. The other led to the other person who had gone with Domina and Steven. The other person who would know what went on on that planet.

She hurried towards the warp pad. She wasn't that desperate. The physical portion of their apartment was depressingly empty. The couch and blankets were gone. Hopefully, during Domina's next trip to Earth, they could get another. The inside of Pink's room was more relaxing. Windows looked out onto the landscape of a marshy planet visited during her and Domina's time wandering the universe. The floor was dotted with shelves that would hold books and ephemera collected from over the years. Most of it had been recovered from the wreckage of the quake and was in her gem, waiting for a moment of peace for her to organize and arrange.

There was a hole between their rooms. A place where the binding was thin enough that they could pass through. Sometimes these appeared as columns or pools of water. Thankfully, this was just a door. She walked into the flagship for the primary fleet section and couldn't help but smile.

Pink Pearl's room was based on a conglomeration of real places, with creative liberties taken obviously. Leave it to Domina though to get every aspect of a real place down to the most minor of details, like the dent in the wall from when Vitus had nearly been thrown through it during a particularly rambunctious 'roughhousing' session.

Sometimes she wondered about where they would be if Domina hadn't decided to go to Earth. If Steven hadn't helped and finally given her the push she needed to advocate for real change in the empire. They certainly wouldn't have spent this much time on Homeworld, away from the life she so clearly craved.

Domina was in her room. What had always been her room, closest to the food, farthest from the door. And the inside was the only thing blended. There were tiny lights on the ceiling that showed the patterns of star clusters from around the empire which hadn't been in Domina's room until she was 5. There were scribbles on the wall of space ships, and a nebula that pearl had actually done a few years before it had been painted over. And curled in bed was Domina, with her black coat wrapped around her. The one that had been abandoned ten years ago after she had reformed, in favor of her white one. Her face wasn't as relaxed when she slept as it used to be. Her brow was furrowed and her face scrunched uncomfortably in her sleep. Pearl frowned softly and pulled a proper blanket over her. Stars even the blankets felt right. What kind of processing power was Domina pulling into her simulation?

In response to her movement, Domina's eyes cracked open. Then closed and a slow smile came over her face.

"Oh no... you've cornered me" She mumbled.

"Well you did fly away when I asked you about your trip," Pearl said. The woman visibly winced and gave her a sheepish smile as she sat up, scooting to the side of the bed. As soon as Pearl sat down Domina leaned up against her, she wasn't as heavy or as warm as she used to be but still definitely Domina in the way she sagged into her.

"It's... it was a busy trip," Domina said finally. She stared at the floor, her hand reaching up to rub the set of her gem.

"I can imagine," Pearl said, she hesitated, forcing through her usual discomfort. "Pink Diamond is almost as exhausting as you." Domina gasped out laughter in surprise.

"She was fine. Though she kept lagging behind once we got on the planet. Star's I'd hate to think what'd she be like on a planet with actual foliage." Domina said through her chuckles. Towards the end of the statement, her smile turned more into a thoughtful frown. Which would turn into a project if Pearl wasn't careful.

"What happened on the planet?" Pearl asked quickly getting to the point. Domina froze, and Pearl could see the indecision writing itself on her face.

Stars above, How bad was this? Pearl braced herself as Domina opened her mouth to speak.

"We woke something up." She said, finally, and the words began to trickle out of her slowly. A planet not quite dead with a species in cryosleep. Suddenly woken up. It was bad, yes but not 'Domina locks herself in her room'-bad.

"Alright. So did you tell..." Well, there was a question.

"No, not yet. The only people who know are you, Pink, and Steven." Domina said, clearly though that wasn't the problem. It took a long moment, long enough that Pink almost asked herself, but finally, Domina continued. "It was an old Pearl. Older than me, older than you, older than the empire and... The writing was ours, gem writing but just... old."

"The writing it talked about evacuation and an attack and cryosleep obviously. But also genetic material, and cloning and...stars." Domina shook her head, hand running through her hair like it was her lifeline.

Ah, yes. That would nearly be bad enough to make Domina lock herself in her room.

"That's... significant."

"Yes. Very significant." Domina flopped back onto the bed. That reveal hung in the air for a long moment. This time Pearl decided to break it, even though she didn't particularly want to know the answer.

"You had a good time with Pink Diamond though?" Pearl asked finally. Domina sat up again, this time slinging a long arm around pearl.

"I did, the time that I wasn't spending panicking though. She's..." Domina pursed her lips in thought. "Not what I expected."

"Oh?" Pearl asked.

"She's much more interested in things than she lets on. I think she has... potential. She just needs to be pointed in the right direction." Domina nodded to punctuate her statement.

"That... is very true in some ways." Pearl smoothed the edges of her jacket uneasily.

"Have you talked to her yet?"

"No."

"You don't have to." Domina hugged her tighter and Pearl was thankful for a moment she didn't have bones. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to."

"I know," Pearl said, she sighed and drummed her fingers against her leg. It would be so easy to do that. To spend the next eon avoiding Pink Diamond at every turn but... that wasn't fair to anyone involved. Including herself. "But, I should. And I will."


	23. Chapter 23

**So I've been taking a writing class that I've really been enjoying, which explains my recent abscense, and life in general is just really busy right now. But today is the two year anniversary of the Domina series, and I wanted to make sure that I got the chapter out. I've talked a lot about how much this series has meant to me. and it's really probably the biggest reason I started writing again. I know it's inevitable, that I'll be moving on to other projects, but I am going to finish this story. I promise. So thank you everyone for reading and commenting and generally being awesome.**

**That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'll be doing my best to get this next chapter out sooner.**

**see you guys next time.**

"I'll be there as soon as the meetings over," Domina said. Billions of miles away, on the other side of the communication line, Steven nodded.

"So somewhere between two hours and 3 days?" Steven asked with a slight grin. Domina frowned.

"You seem like your joking, but that's an unfortunately accurate statement."

"Oh, I know it is. No worries though, I'm supposed to have dinner with Connie tonight so I'll be occupied."

"Well, Stars forbid you would be bored," Domina muttered. Her path through the halls of the Citadel slowed as the crowds grew. The quarterly meeting public had begun to attract more and more gems since its inception. Which was great, it was what she wanted. But she was also running late. She did regret her annoyance when stevens smile faded.

"Are you alright? Still shaken up about the thing on the planet?" Steven asked. Domina shook her head. That had been months ago and there was no sign that anything had truly awoken on the toroidal planet. What was actually occupying her mind was the update she had gotten from Jet regarding the devices that had slowly been accumulating in whatever astroidal warehouse Jet was storing them. All identical and all unusable by gems so far. That combined with the dream last night she felt stretched thinner than the space between atoms.

"I'm fine Steven, I am just working far too many hours. So much to do." Domina said with half a smile that she didn't really mean. Steven looked skeptical.

"Ok, sure but don't forget that you need to rest. Working hard is important but so is feeling good." He said firmly.

"I know, I know," Domina said with rolled eyes. "I'll see you in anywhere between 3 and 72 hours." She had passed into what had been the diamond corridor and was coming up on the meeting room. "If you don't hear from me by then, send help."

Public meetings, in the beginning, had been an awkward affair. The Diamonds weren't used to being scrutinized and the Pearls weren't used to being listened to. But slowly, as more gems became used to their everyday presence, the meetings relaxed, and in all honesty they were one of the things Domina was more proud of in Era 3.

This was the first one that pink was attending and her precense did cause quite a bit of a stir amongst the gems who still were not used to the youngest diamonds prescene. Pink however seemed engrossed in something on her screen that Domina couldn't quite see. Nevertheless, domina had more important things to focus on.

"The implementation of crystalline struts designed by Iolite 1R6T 6GD has been approved as well as an assessment by Bismuth 1B4T 5TY to establish the load-bearing limits within the most affected quarters," Domina said. There were several pillars within the meeting room to bring the Pearls, Pink Diamond, and Domina, to eye level with the other two diamonds. Technically Domina had a seat on one at the far end of the room but She rarely used it. Preferring to perch on the railing that separated the members of the Homeworld Governing Committee from the general public, or alternatively as she was now, on one of the pearls pillars to look over their shoulders.

Currently, she was on Blue Pearl's pillar and over the gems' shoulder, Domina could see notes as well as tiny doodles dotting the edges. Quickly, as Yellow Diamond asked both gems to go over the scope and resources required for the project, Domina saw Blue Pearl doodle another face, this one with long spikey hair and a gem on her forehead. The Pearl then drew a pair of binoculars pointed at a facsimile of herself. Domina smirked and took the hint, stepping off the column to go stand on her own.

"What is the status of the terraforming efforts on 23-T72 will we be able to begin to implantation?" Pearl asked. Domina saw Yellow Pearl, pale and shuffle through her notes. Meanwhile, Pink Diamond looked up curiously.

"Ah yes well-" Yellow Pearl was interrupted by a loud chime causing Blue Diamond to fly to her feet.

From her position Domina saw Blue Pearl's eyes go wide. All the other gems were surprised of course, but Blue pearls glance clearly said that she knew something. That it was significant. Blue Pearl looked across at Jet who's eyes darted from a blinking screen, to follow Blue Diamond who left the room quickly after excusing herself.

Which was reason enough for Domina to go after Blue Diamond, ignoring the mutters of confusion from the gallery of spectators, and the strangled unease from the rest of the HGC. She followed Blue Diamond to a nearby room, but stopped at the door, landing on the ground to stare up at the sight in front of her.

"-unacceptable!" A beaked alien snapped at a hooded Blue Diamond, it's four eyes were trained on the diamond so failed to notice Domina lurking in the doorway.

"White Diamond has insisted that all communications go through me." Blue Diamond's voice was cool and firm, clearly displeased at having been interrupted, by whatever this was... a starok maybe? Domina had really only perused the file on the other aliens that Blue Pearl had condensed from the empire's vast store of knowledge on the collection of sentient races outside of their boundaries. She would have to give it a more thorough read some other time.

"I will not tolerate any more excuses Blue Diamond, I insist that I speak to White Diamond immediately!" The starock said, Domina could see plumes on the back of its neck raising and lightening from purple to red in anger. Blue Diamond, however, was unmoved.

"And White Diamond has more important things to do than listen to you."

"White Diamond has flagrantly misrepresented the promises that she made to this alliance." The staroks plumes continued to expand until it was nearly doubled in height. Domina rose, the moment Blue Diamond flinched. "I _will_ speak to her now or there _will_ be consequences!"

"That's entirely unnecessary," Domina said, revealing her presence and maneuvering to stand between Blue Diamond and the screen. "I'm here now, what is so dire that you feel the need to resort to threats?"

"Domina!" Blue Diamond hissed, in front of Domina though the starok had immediately deflated and its eyes widened. Even on an alien, that look was familiar. Though, it had been years since she had seen it on a gem who was surprised to learn that this organic was the replacement for their brilliant matriarch.

"You are not White Diamond." The starok said its eyes narrowed. Domina smiled back but didn't quite let it reach her eyes. She may not agree with Blue Diamond at the best of times but she was still one of Domina's gems, and stars help anyone who threatened one of Domina's gems.

"Not as you may have known her. But I have her authority." Domina said crisply. There was a sigh from behind her. Presumably, there was a reason that the starok didn't know about Domina. And now it did, whether Blue Diamond liked it or not.

The top set of the staroks eyes raised to focus on Blue Diamond while the bottom ones never left Domina's gem.

"You will both attend the next council session or steps will be taken," The starok said after a moment. The call ended without another word and the communicator closed.

Blue Diamonds arm reached out to catch the falling crystal as Domina turned to face the fuming Diamond and crowd of HGC members lurking in the doorway.

"So..." Domina drawled, floating back to the ground as the world began to spin around her. "Sounds like they've missed some events."

* * *

Millenia of careful maneuvering so that White Diamond never had a reason to be seen outside of the empire, destroyed in an instant.

"You didn't tell them?!" Yellow asked.

"Yellow do you really think I would reveal such a huge weakness to potential enemies?" Blue Diamond sat with her back to the wall in the workroom typically reserved for the pearls for some star's cursed reason.

"Honestly, most of the empire didn't know I existed until two years ago, of course, she didn't tell.. What was that?" Domina asked turning to look at Blue. She didn't seem upset which was one thing to take off of Blue Diamonds mind. \

"That was Nilzaet, I believe his name is. Starok ambassador." Blue Pearl said. She was sitting on the other side of the workroom, of course, it was good to know that she had been paying attention, Blue Diamond supposed. Then again, if she hadn't been maybe they wouldn't be in this situation. Domina nodded seriously.

"What did he mean? About White Diamond's promises?"

It took everything for Blue not to laugh.

"I honestly have no idea."

"And how do we know you're not lying?" Jet said from her position at the door. Star's above.

"Why would I lie about this?" Blue Diamond snapped.

"You haven't exactly been the most forthcoming about any information you deem 'unimportant for common gems'" Jet said pitching her voice down in what was apparently supposed to be an imitation of her voice.

"Jet, that's not necessary," Yellow grumbled.

Blue Diamond, however, glared at Jet, holding back her icy anger from the rest of the room.

"White Diamond has made and broken countless deals from over the eons. It could have been any one of them." She snapped. "I have been doing my best to deal with the results and the last thing I need is any of you blundering in and ruining it any more than you already have!" There was a long moment of quiet when for a split second Blue Diamond thought that that might be the end of the discussion. Then, of course, Domina had to prove her wrong.

"Well, I think I'll keep blundering anyway," Domina said, she was sitting on the table now, with folded arms and her screen open in front of her.

"Of course you will, can't be bothered to have a reason to keep me outside of a bubble can you?"

Domina looked at her surprised, then looked at Yellow, then at the pearls, including her own. Pink... now that Blue thought about it Pink wasn't here, where had she gone?

"Oh, there's already plenty of reason," Domina said. Blue Diamond saw Jet roll her eye. "Most of all being that I have no idea who half of these people are and...unless Blue?" Blue Diamond's Pearl looked at Domina and sighed.

"No, this is not my area of expertise." She said finally. Part of Blue Diamond wanted to say 'Well, of course, it's not but it didn't take a sapphire to know that that wouldn't go over well.

"Very well."

"Good," Domina said. "Now, when is this meeting?"

"Two weeks' time." Blue Diamond said with a sigh. Going with Domina would be uncomfortable enough, let alone anyone else the other diamond would insist on dragging along. She couldn't bear to imagine even Yellow dealing with the other species.

"Excellent. Jet, do you believe that you could use the opportunity to discover which species created and sent the devices?" Domina said.

"You can't be serious." Blue Diamond interjected, even though it was pretty obvious that she was.

"I could." Jet said, her jaw tense.

"Excellent." Domina's eyes flashed down to her screen and she nodded. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do on Earth. When I get back, Blue Diamond I'm going to need you to get me up to speed. I see now that we've neglected this for far too long."

And that was quite possibly the least comforting thing Blue Diamond had ever heard.


End file.
